Pascal famously argued that belief in God is rational because of the expected value of belief. If God exists, the rewards of believing—eternal salvation—are infinite, while if God does not exist, the costs of believing are finite. Even a minuscule probability of an infinite reward seemingly swamps any worldly cost.

That is the core of Pascal’s Wager. But then there is Pascal’s Mugging. A stranger approaches and insists that if Pascal hands over a mere 100 dollars, they will pay him back tomorrow with an infinite amount of money. It may seem absurd to accept this deal, but as long as the probability that the stranger is telling the truth is above zero, the expected financial gain of handing over the money still seems greater than keeping it. Yet this may seem irrational! [...] 

CRS Co-Founder Tobias Baumann’s introduction to s-risks, Avoiding the Worst: How to Prevent a Moral Catastrophe is now available as an audiobook.

Professionally voiced by Adrian Nelson, the full audio can be listened to on Audible or there is a free video version now available on the new CRS YouTube channel. [...] 

I have just published my new book on s-risks, titled Avoiding the Worst: How to Prevent a Moral Catastrophe. You can find it on Amazon, read the PDF version, or listen to a provisional audio version.

The book is primarily aimed at longtermist effective altruists. I wrote it because I feel that s-risk prevention is a somewhat neglected priority area in the community, and because a single, comprehensive introduction to s-risks did not yet exist. My hope is that a coherent introduction will help to strengthen interest in the topic and spark further work. [...]