Strong agree, and part of this is just that EAs should be more modest about how much their assessments of sector impact out-perform other people’s. In the long term, weird second-order social impacts of interventions matter a lot more than the direct impact. For example, the (disputed) effects of abortion on crime rates https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272721001043?via%3Dihub and female employment/social engagement https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12122-004-1028-3 may create social spirals that continue long after the medical harm of the pregnancy and therefore considerably bump abortion rights up the virtual list of longtermist goals, but these effects are very hard to assess in simple models.
Strong agree, and part of this is just that EAs should be more modest about how much their assessments of sector impact out-perform other people’s. In the long term, weird second-order social impacts of interventions matter a lot more than the direct impact. For example, the (disputed) effects of abortion on crime rates https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272721001043?via%3Dihub and female employment/social engagement https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12122-004-1028-3 may create social spirals that continue long after the medical harm of the pregnancy and therefore considerably bump abortion rights up the virtual list of longtermist goals, but these effects are very hard to assess in simple models.
Thanks Robin! Very good points.