Thanks for a great post. I agree with many of the points.
I do think that we still need to better understand how short-run changes interact with long-run expectations. In cases where we can effect surprisingly large changes to the world today (and poverty interventions have at least a plausible claim to this), the long-run effects may also be large. While I agree that differential intellectual progress is likely an order of magnitude more important than absolute intellectual progress, the opportunities available to us may in some cases be enough to recover the difference the other way. We should be prepared to look for such opportunities (although we should also be a bit sceptical if we haven’t also looked for similarly good opportunities in differential progress).
Research on differential technological development seems much less crowded than the sorts of interventions advocated by proponents of the “progress and prosperity” argument that Paul criticizes. So unless one regards that area of research as singularly intractable, it seems its scoring much more highly on both the importance and crowdedness dimensions should make it a more promising cause overall.
Thanks for a great post. I agree with many of the points.
I do think that we still need to better understand how short-run changes interact with long-run expectations. In cases where we can effect surprisingly large changes to the world today (and poverty interventions have at least a plausible claim to this), the long-run effects may also be large. While I agree that differential intellectual progress is likely an order of magnitude more important than absolute intellectual progress, the opportunities available to us may in some cases be enough to recover the difference the other way. We should be prepared to look for such opportunities (although we should also be a bit sceptical if we haven’t also looked for similarly good opportunities in differential progress).
Research on differential technological development seems much less crowded than the sorts of interventions advocated by proponents of the “progress and prosperity” argument that Paul criticizes. So unless one regards that area of research as singularly intractable, it seems its scoring much more highly on both the importance and crowdedness dimensions should make it a more promising cause overall.