This is tricky, because it’s really an empirical claim for which we need empirical evidence. I don’t currently have such evidence about anyone’s counterfactual choices. But I think even if you zoom in on the top 10% of a skewed distribution, it’s still going to be skewed. Within the top 10% (or even 1%) of researchers, nonprofits, it’s likely only a small subset are making most of the impact.
I think it’s true that “the higher we aim, the higher uncertainty we have” but you make it seem as if that uncertainty always washes out. I don’t think it does. I think higher uncertainty often is an indicator that you might be able to make it into the tails. Consider the monetary EV of starting a really good startup or working at a tech company. A startup has more uncertainty, but that’s because it creates the possibility of tail gains.
Anecdotally I think that certain choices I’ve made have changed the EV of my work by orders of magnitude. It’s important to note that I didn’t necessarily know this at the time, but I think it’s true retrospectively. But I do agree it’s not necessarily true in all cases.
This is tricky, because it’s really an empirical claim for which we need empirical evidence. I don’t currently have such evidence about anyone’s counterfactual choices. But I think even if you zoom in on the top 10% of a skewed distribution, it’s still going to be skewed. Within the top 10% (or even 1%) of researchers, nonprofits, it’s likely only a small subset are making most of the impact.
I think it’s true that “the higher we aim, the higher uncertainty we have” but you make it seem as if that uncertainty always washes out. I don’t think it does. I think higher uncertainty often is an indicator that you might be able to make it into the tails. Consider the monetary EV of starting a really good startup or working at a tech company. A startup has more uncertainty, but that’s because it creates the possibility of tail gains.
Anecdotally I think that certain choices I’ve made have changed the EV of my work by orders of magnitude. It’s important to note that I didn’t necessarily know this at the time, but I think it’s true retrospectively. But I do agree it’s not necessarily true in all cases.