Can you say why you feel that longtermism suffers from less cluelessness that what you argue the GiveWell charities do? The main limitation of longtermism is that affecting the future is riddled with cluelessness. You mention Hilary Greavesâ talk, but it doesnât seem to address this. She refers to âreducing the chance of premature human extinctionâ but doesnât say how.
Assuming most of the expected value of the interventions of GiveWellâs top charities is in the future (due to effects on the population size), we are cluelessness about its total cost-effectiveness. This limitation also applies to longtermist interventions.
However, if the goal is maximising longterm cost-effectiveness (because that is where most of the value is), explicitly focussing on the longterm effects will tend to be better than explicitly focussing on nearterm effects. This is informed by the heuristic that it is easier to achieve something when we are trying to achieve it. So longtermist interventions will tend to be more effective.
It would also be surprising and suspicious convergence if the best interventions to save lives in the present were also the best from a longtermist perspective. The post from Alex HT I linked in the Summary has more details.
Can you say why you feel that longtermism suffers from less cluelessness that what you argue the GiveWell charities do? The main limitation of longtermism is that affecting the future is riddled with cluelessness.
You mention Hilary Greavesâ talk, but it doesnât seem to address this. She refers to âreducing the chance of premature human extinctionâ but doesnât say how.
Hi Henry,
Thanks for engaging!
Assuming most of the expected value of the interventions of GiveWellâs top charities is in the future (due to effects on the population size), we are cluelessness about its total cost-effectiveness. This limitation also applies to longtermist interventions.
However, if the goal is maximising longterm cost-effectiveness (because that is where most of the value is), explicitly focussing on the longterm effects will tend to be better than explicitly focussing on nearterm effects. This is informed by the heuristic that it is easier to achieve something when we are trying to achieve it. So longtermist interventions will tend to be more effective.
It would also be surprising and suspicious convergence if the best interventions to save lives in the present were also the best from a longtermist perspective. The post from Alex HT I linked in the Summary has more details.