I think your paraphrase is roughly right. But this is not exactly how I’d frame it. Instead, I’d frame it as:
I think improving the long-term future significantly is quite hard. So you need either a pretty targeted theory of change, or the type of mindset that has an implicitly very strong ToC that lets you spot great opportunities along the implicit ToC and execute on it.
Some people do manage to accidentally improve the long-term future significantly (e.g. there’s an argument for Petrov’s grandmother), but this is very much not the default, and we should not rely on them being successful at this, especially ex ante.
Thanks for clarifying. I agree with you that if the main reason you are supporting a candidate is their potential impact on long-term future oriented policy then the opposing candidate doesn’t matter much beyond a simple estimate of their electoral chances vs. your candidate.
I guess I’m also not convinced if you care about typical neartermist EA causes that the math checks out. Like, I don’t think typical progressive democrats are very good at e.g. increasing foreign aid or phasing out factory farming, though at least this seems more plausible. *
I did look briefly at Salinas’ platform and I didn’t see anything about (e.g.) increasing global health spending.
(EDIT: I do think the “functioning democracy” angle may be a reasonably strong contender for the type of crucial consideration that could flip my conclusion, though I’m currently at <10% here. I think it’s great that you brought this up).
* Obviously there are more exceptions for specific Democrat candidates on non-LT issues, e.g. I was (and am) a Cory Booker shill.
I don’t understand why you keep presenting this as a long-term vs near-term issue. I would have been thrilled to support a candidate who advocated for comprehensive and unprecedented welfare reform for farmed animals, or for massive increases in well-targeted global health spending. Support for such issues is so rare in American politics, and could be so disproportionately impactful, that it makes perfect sense to focus exclusively on the exceptional candidate who decides to make them a top priority.
I don’t understand why you keep presenting this as a long-term vs near-term issue.
I probably framed my first reply to Matthew in a way that was unhelpfully focused only on LT stuff, which I’d guess partially led to the presentation in his response.
I think your paraphrase is roughly right. But this is not exactly how I’d frame it. Instead, I’d frame it as:
I think improving the long-term future significantly is quite hard. So you need either a pretty targeted theory of change, or the type of mindset that has an implicitly very strong ToC that lets you spot great opportunities along the implicit ToC and execute on it.
Some people do manage to accidentally improve the long-term future significantly (e.g. there’s an argument for Petrov’s grandmother), but this is very much not the default, and we should not rely on them being successful at this, especially ex ante.
Thanks for clarifying. I agree with you that if the main reason you are supporting a candidate is their potential impact on long-term future oriented policy then the opposing candidate doesn’t matter much beyond a simple estimate of their electoral chances vs. your candidate.
I guess I’m also not convinced if you care about typical neartermist EA causes that the math checks out. Like, I don’t think typical progressive democrats are very good at e.g. increasing foreign aid or phasing out factory farming, though at least this seems more plausible. *
I did look briefly at Salinas’ platform and I didn’t see anything about (e.g.) increasing global health spending.
(EDIT: I do think the “functioning democracy” angle may be a reasonably strong contender for the type of crucial consideration that could flip my conclusion, though I’m currently at <10% here. I think it’s great that you brought this up).
* Obviously there are more exceptions for specific Democrat candidates on non-LT issues, e.g. I was (and am) a Cory Booker shill.
I don’t understand why you keep presenting this as a long-term vs near-term issue. I would have been thrilled to support a candidate who advocated for comprehensive and unprecedented welfare reform for farmed animals, or for massive increases in well-targeted global health spending. Support for such issues is so rare in American politics, and could be so disproportionately impactful, that it makes perfect sense to focus exclusively on the exceptional candidate who decides to make them a top priority.
I probably framed my first reply to Matthew in a way that was unhelpfully focused only on LT stuff, which I’d guess partially led to the presentation in his response.