Maybe the philanthropist should be deciding whether to fund clean energy R&D or vaccines R&D, or similar.
I like these examples, especially the fact that it’s obvious they impact the long term. My main worry, however, would be that most longtermists will start pretty convinced that we can figure out which one is best without too much trouble (actually, I think they’d even already have an opinion) and that this is not a good example of cluelessness, (even) more so than with something like dogs vs cats.
But very good pointer. I’ll try to think of something in the same vein as clean energy vs vaccines but where longtermist would start more agnostic. Maybe two things where the sign on X-risk reduction seems unusually uncertain..
I like these examples, especially the fact that it’s obvious they impact the long term. My main worry, however, would be that most longtermists will start pretty convinced that we can figure out which one is best without too much trouble (actually, I think they’d even already have an opinion) and that this is not a good example of cluelessness, (even) more so than with something like dogs vs cats.
But very good pointer. I’ll try to think of something in the same vein as clean energy vs vaccines but where longtermist would start more agnostic. Maybe two things where the sign on X-risk reduction seems unusually uncertain..