Animal Liberation and Famine, Affluence, and Morality are two of the most influential texts that I have ever read. Which texts have had the most influence on you?

If you were in your twenties now, with your career ahead of you, with the aim of trying to help the world in a big way, what would you do? In particular, what would you do differently to what you did in your twenties and why?

Do you think that artificial sentience is possible? Is it likely and/or inevitable in the next, say, 10 years of AI development?

Please could you outline your views on moral realism? In particular your recent-ish transition from anti-realist to realist. What triggered this? Has it had any impacts on the way you live your life?

Hey Jordan, I work in the space sector and I'm also based in London. I am currently working on a Government project assessing the impact of space weather on UK critical national infrastructure. I've written a little on the existential risk of space weather, too, e.g. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9gjc4ok4GfwuyRASL/cosmic-rays-could-cause-major-electronic-disruption-and-pose

I'll message you as it would be good to connect!

The explosion of a nuclear bomb is "temporary", yet carries an extinction risk. Transient events can trigger long-term changes the Earth environment, transforming it into an inhospitable place. "Temporary" events can destroy the world.

There is a rich field of research into space weather and its impacts on modern technology. The 2013 Royal Academy of Engineering report on Extreme Space Weather  is a good place to start (although it is UK-focussed). The most likely impacts are on electricity networks. Widespread blackouts lasting several months, which would have extreme impacts on critical services, are expected to occur in a 100-year geomagnetic storm. Damage to satellites, satellite services (GPS, satellite timing, etc), and disruption to mobile and radio communication is also expected during such an event.

There is much less research into space weather as an existential risk. The mechanism is through depletion of atmospheric ozone due to a large influx of extremely high-energy protons, accelerated by a solar flare.  Such superflares may have contributed to previous mass extinctions. Such an extinction-level event has been estimated to have an annual probability of 1/20 million. This estimate is based on extrapolations from radioisotope measurements in tree rings and ice-cores suggesting the existence of much larger space weather events occurring several thousands of years ago, and the observations of flares from other stars with orders of magnitude times the energy of those we observe on our Sun.

I am currently working on an updated space weather risk assessment for the UK. The focus is not on extinction-level events, but on ~100-year events. Happy to chat if anyone is interested.