Indeed a large part of what I was trying to say was that I’m more sympathetic to this strategy right now for “urgent longtermists” than “patient longtermists”
For what it’s worth, as someone who read this post fairly quickly, I thought this point only came across as a minor aside in the grand scheme of your post (I think you only mention it in the last paragraph before your “some caveats”?).
I think you make the point here as well but I’m not sure if it came across as clearly as it could:
My current guess is to recommend spending rather than saving money at current margins to both patient and urgent longtermists; neither recommendation feels robust, but I’m actually a little more pro-spending for patient longtermists.
By the way I have strongly upvoted this post! I was aware of your overall point already but it was definitely useful to read your explanation and some of the more specific points. I agree that people have been too quick to jump to giving later if they identify as patient longtermists.
I guess “large part of what I was trying to say” was an overstatement; it’s an illustrative facet of the large thing (which is that there isn’t the obvious coupling).
Anyhow thanks for the pointer, I made some small language tweaks to the second part quoted (which hopefully help).
For what it’s worth, as someone who read this post fairly quickly, I thought this point only came across as a minor aside in the grand scheme of your post (I think you only mention it in the last paragraph before your “some caveats”?).
I think you make the point here as well but I’m not sure if it came across as clearly as it could:
By the way I have strongly upvoted this post! I was aware of your overall point already but it was definitely useful to read your explanation and some of the more specific points. I agree that people have been too quick to jump to giving later if they identify as patient longtermists.
I guess “large part of what I was trying to say” was an overstatement; it’s an illustrative facet of the large thing (which is that there isn’t the obvious coupling).
Anyhow thanks for the pointer, I made some small language tweaks to the second part quoted (which hopefully help).