An update: after a bit of digging, I discovered this post, “Should marginal longtermist donations support fundamental or intervention research?”, which contains a discussion on a topic that is quite close to “should EA value foundational (science/decision theory) research,” (in the pathway (1) section of my post). The conclusions of the post I found do not fit into my vague impressions of “the consensus.” In particular, the conclusion of that post is that longtermist research hours should often be spent on fundamental research (which is defined by its goals).
I’m moderately confident that, from a longtermist perspective, $1M of additional research funding would be better allocated to fundamental rather than intervention research (unless funders have access to unusually good intervention research opportunities, but not to unusually good fundamental research opportunities)
(Disclaimer: the author, Michael, is employed at Rethink Priorities, where I am interning. I don’t know if he still endorses this post or its conclusions, but the post seems relevant here and very valuable as a reference.)
An update: after a bit of digging, I discovered this post, “Should marginal longtermist donations support fundamental or intervention research?”, which contains a discussion on a topic that is quite close to “should EA value foundational (science/decision theory) research,” (in the pathway (1) section of my post). The conclusions of the post I found do not fit into my vague impressions of “the consensus.” In particular, the conclusion of that post is that longtermist research hours should often be spent on fundamental research (which is defined by its goals).
(Disclaimer: the author, Michael, is employed at Rethink Priorities, where I am interning. I don’t know if he still endorses this post or its conclusions, but the post seems relevant here and very valuable as a reference.)
fwiw, I think I still broadly endorse the post and its conclusions.
(I only skimmed your post, so can’t comment on how my views and my post aligns/conflicts with the views in your post.)