I am a total novice in this area, but this seems like a really great post!
In addition to great content, it is well written, with crisp, clear points. It’s enjoyable to read.
I have a bunch of low to moderate quality comments below.
One motivation for writing this comment is that very high quality posts often don’t get comments for some reason. So please comment and criticize my thoughts!
The main point seems true!
I think the main point of scale and institutional advantages seems true (but I don’t know much about the topic).
Maybe another way of seeing this is that the 1% fallacy applies in reverse: in smaller countries you are much more able to effect change and the institutional lessons can then be transferred and scaled up in a second phase.
Critique: EA contributions are unclear?
I think a potential critique to your goal of attracting EA attention would be that the cause is not neglected.
To flesh this out, I think a variant of this critique would be:
Nordic planners and experts have both high human capital and are funded by state wealth (vastly larger than any existing granter). Combined with their cultural/institutional knowledge, this could be an overwhelmingly high bar for an outsider to enter into and make an impact.
Another way of looking at this, is that the premise overvalues EA—EA is a great movement. But it’s small, and it’s successes has been in neglected causes and meta-charity.
So a premortem might look like “Ok so a lot of EAs came in, but generally, their initial help/advice amounted to noise. Ultimately, the most helpful pattern was that EAs ended up adding to our talent pool for our institutions (alongside the normal stream of Nordic candidates). This doesn’t scale (since it adds people one-by-one) and doesn’t really benefit from specific EA ideas.
You mention longtermism being implemented in Nordic countries.
Your examples included national saving withdrawals being codified at 3% per year, and programs giving explicit attention to time horizons of 40 years.
This looks a bit like “patient longtermism” (?)...but it mainly looks like “good governance” that does not require any attention to the astronomically large value of future generations.
Is it worth untangling this or is it reasonable to round off?
Thank you for your feedback! These are important points, and I’m glad you brought it up.
· EA contributions are unclear This is a valid concern. However, we still believe EAs can add value to the policy making here, for two main reasons: 1) domain expertise on EA cause areas (that Nordic planners may lack even though they are generally competent) and 2) specialization in different parts of the policy making value chain (e.g. EAs can take roles as information suppliers providing a fact base that Nordic policy makers don’t have capacity to find themselves. The policy makers can then assess the information provided on its own merits, and hopefully reach the right conclusions (which may sometimes be different from what EAs would’ve done in their position).
· Longtermist policies versus good governance Our main point here is not about whether Norway already has implemented the most important policies for future generations. Rather, we wanted to exemplify how longtermist initiatives already have a foothold in Norway and that this shows that longtermist values might be easier to translate into policies with enough EA policy efforts.
I am a total novice in this area, but this seems like a really great post!
In addition to great content, it is well written, with crisp, clear points. It’s enjoyable to read.
I have a bunch of low to moderate quality comments below.
One motivation for writing this comment is that very high quality posts often don’t get comments for some reason. So please comment and criticize my thoughts!
The main point seems true!
I think the main point of scale and institutional advantages seems true (but I don’t know much about the topic).
Maybe another way of seeing this is that the 1% fallacy applies in reverse: in smaller countries you are much more able to effect change and the institutional lessons can then be transferred and scaled up in a second phase.
Critique: EA contributions are unclear?
I think a potential critique to your goal of attracting EA attention would be that the cause is not neglected.
To flesh this out, I think a variant of this critique would be:
Nordic planners and experts have both high human capital and are funded by state wealth (vastly larger than any existing granter). Combined with their cultural/institutional knowledge, this could be an overwhelmingly high bar for an outsider to enter into and make an impact.
Another way of looking at this, is that the premise overvalues EA—EA is a great movement. But it’s small, and it’s successes has been in neglected causes and meta-charity.
So a premortem might look like “Ok so a lot of EAs came in, but generally, their initial help/advice amounted to noise. Ultimately, the most helpful pattern was that EAs ended up adding to our talent pool for our institutions (alongside the normal stream of Nordic candidates). This doesn’t scale (since it adds people one-by-one) and doesn’t really benefit from specific EA ideas.
This point could be responded to with some “vision” or scenarios of how EAs would “win”. Maybe the EAF ballot initiative and Jan-Willem’s work on workshops would be good examples.
Longtermist policies versus good governance
You mention longtermism being implemented in Nordic countries.
Your examples included national saving withdrawals being codified at 3% per year, and programs giving explicit attention to time horizons of 40 years.
This looks a bit like “patient longtermism” (?)...but it mainly looks like “good governance” that does not require any attention to the astronomically large value of future generations.
Is it worth untangling this or is it reasonable to round off?
Thank you for your feedback! These are important points, and I’m glad you brought it up.
· EA contributions are unclear
This is a valid concern. However, we still believe EAs can add value to the policy making here, for two main reasons: 1) domain expertise on EA cause areas (that Nordic planners may lack even though they are generally competent) and 2) specialization in different parts of the policy making value chain (e.g. EAs can take roles as information suppliers providing a fact base that Nordic policy makers don’t have capacity to find themselves. The policy makers can then assess the information provided on its own merits, and hopefully reach the right conclusions (which may sometimes be different from what EAs would’ve done in their position).
· Longtermist policies versus good governance
Our main point here is not about whether Norway already has implemented the most important policies for future generations. Rather, we wanted to exemplify how longtermist initiatives already have a foothold in Norway and that this shows that longtermist values might be easier to translate into policies with enough EA policy efforts.
This makes a lot of sense. Thank you!