An added reason to not take expected value estimates literally (which applies to some/many casual donors, but probably not to AGB or GiveWell) is if you believe that you are not capable of making reasonable expected value estimates under high uncertainty yourself, and you’re leery of long casual chains because you’ve developed a defense mechanism against your values being Eulered or Dutch-Booked.
An added reason to not take expected value estimates literally (which applies to some/many casual donors, but probably not to AGB or GiveWell) is if you believe that you are not capable of making reasonable expected value estimates under high uncertainty yourself, and you’re leery of long casual chains because you’ve developed a defense mechanism against your values being Eulered or Dutch-Booked.
Apologies for the weird terminology, see: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/10/getting-eulered/ and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_book