My employer isn’t gonna allow me to take a couple months off to go do this thing I personally am very interested in
Have you considered asking them about it? I've worked at several software jobs where this would have been no problem. I've also seen a few people take sabbaticals and there was no issue with it, their teammates generally thought it was really cool. One guy I know took a 1-year sabbatical to live in a van and drive around Europe.
This is all anecdotal and your situation may be different of course. I just wanted to add this data point as it seemed like you may be prematurely dismissing sabbaticals as some crazy thing that never happens in real life.
The worst part is, for most of these, time lost is gone forever. It's just a slowdown. Like the Thai floods simply permanently set back hard drive progress and made them expensive for a long time, there was never any 'catchup growth' or 'overhang' from it.
Isn’t this great news for AI safety due to giving us longer timelines?
I found your earlier comment in this thread insightful and I think it would be really valuable to know what evidence convinced you of these timelines. If you don't have time to summarize in a post, is there anything you could link to?
How long do you expect the event to last for? I'd love to join but this week I'll have to leave after the first hour.
For a high level look at quantum physics I’d recommend Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carroll. I feel like I understand many worlds much better after reading it. If you like audiobooks this one is great too.