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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Nuclear risk research ideas: Summary & introduction, published by MichaelA on April 8, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Note: I haven’t put as much time into this series of posts as I’d like, but thought it’s better to post them in their current form than never post at all. Also, I mostly wrote these posts in late 2021, and I haven’t attempted to update them in light of (a) the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine or (b) the New Nuclear Security Grantmaking Programme at Longview Philanthropy. I’d now encourage readers to seriously consider applying to Longview’s roles (if they’re still open when you read this) and to have Longview in mind as a key potential user/hirer/ally for nuclear risk work readers might do. Summary & the list of ideas This series of posts outlines possible research projects that I think would be tractable and could substantially help us work out (a) how much to prioritize nuclear risk reduction relative to other important problems and (b) what interventions to prioritize within the area of nuclear risk reduction. There are also various forms of support that may be available to someone interested in pursuing these projects, which I overview later in this introductory post. Each project idea should make sense by itself, so you should feel free to read only this post and then the post(s) for any particular idea(s) you’re interested in. For most of the project ideas, I briefly discuss how the project could be tackled, why it might be useful, what sort of person might be a good fit for it, and whether people in the effective altruism community (“EAs”) should try to fund/convince people outside the EA community (“non-EAs”) to do this project. I also list previous work that could be worth reading and people that could be worth talking to. What follows is a table listing the main project ideas in this series along with my rough, subjective, low-confidence bottom-line views about how important, tractable, neglected, and “outsourceable” each idea is. The tractability scores take into account the abandoned drafts or notes that I know other researchers (such as me) have already written on some of these topics and that could be used as a starting point by a new researcher. The neglectedness scores take into account work that’s already been done, is in progress, or seems likely to be done by default. The outsourceability scores are intended to capture how well I imagine funding/convincing non-EAs to do a given project would work. But this table doesn’t capture the person-specific considerations of personal fit, testing fit, or building career capital; as such, you should think for yourself about those considerations rather than blindly following this table’s ratings of each idea. I also haven’t tried to capture how long each project would take, partly because each project could take many different forms and levels of extensiveness. The table links to posts on each of the individual ideas. Project ideaImportanceTractabilityNeglectednessOutsourceabilityIntermediate goals for nuclear risk reductionHighMediumMedium/HighMediumTechnological developments that could increase risks from nuclear weaponsMedium/HighMediumMediumMediumClimate, agricultural, and famine effects of nuclear conflictHighMedium/LowMediumMedium/HighHow should EAs react to funders pulling out of the nuclear risk space?MediumMedium/HighMedium/LowMediumImpact assessment of nuclear-risk-related orgs, programmes, movements, etc.MediumMediumMediumMediumOverview of nuclear-risk-related projects and stakeholdersMedium/LowHighMedium/LowMediumNuclear EMPsMediumMediumMediumMediumPolling or message testing related to nuclear risk reduction and relevant goals/interventionsMediumMediumMediumMedium/HighNeartermist cost-effectiveness analysis of nuclear risk reductionMedium/LowMedium/HighMedium/LowLowDirect and...