I think it’s important to frame longtermism as particular subset of EA. We should be EAs first and longtermists second. EA says to follow the importance-tractability-crowdedness framework, and allocate funding to the most effective causes. This can mean funding longtermist interventions, if they are the most cost-effective. If longtermist interventions get a lot of funding and hit diminishing returns, then they won’t be the most cost-effective anymore. The ITC framework is more general than the longtermist framing of “focus on the long-term future”, and allows us to pivot as funding and tractability changes.
I’m really hoping we can get some better data on resource allocation and estimated effectiveness to make it clearer when funders or individuals should return to focusing on global poverty etc.
There’s a few projects in the works for “ea epistemic infrastructure”
I basically agree with your comment, but wanted to emphasize the part I disagree with:
EA says to follow the importance-tractability-crowdedness framework, and allocate funding to the most effective causes.
EA is about prioritising in order to (try to) do the most good. The ITN framework is just a heuristic for that, which may very well be wrong in many places; and funding is just one of the resources we can use.
I claim that the ITC framework is not just a heuristic, but captures precisely what we mean by “do the most good”. And I agree, ‘funding’ should be interpreted broadly to include all EA resources (eg. money, labor hours, personal connections, etc).
I think it’s important to frame longtermism as particular subset of EA. We should be EAs first and longtermists second. EA says to follow the importance-tractability-crowdedness framework, and allocate funding to the most effective causes. This can mean funding longtermist interventions, if they are the most cost-effective. If longtermist interventions get a lot of funding and hit diminishing returns, then they won’t be the most cost-effective anymore. The ITC framework is more general than the longtermist framing of “focus on the long-term future”, and allows us to pivot as funding and tractability changes.
I’m really hoping we can get some better data on resource allocation and estimated effectiveness to make it clearer when funders or individuals should return to focusing on global poverty etc.
There’s a few projects in the works for “ea epistemic infrastructure”
Do you have any more info on these “epistemic infrastructure” projects or the people working on them? I would be super curious to look into this more.
For an overview of most of the current efforts into “epistemic infrastructure”, see the comments on my recent post here https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qFPQYM4dfRnE8Cwfx/project-a-web-platform-for-crowdsourcing-impact-estimates-of
Same here.
For an overview of most of the current efforts into “epistemic infrastructure”, see the comments on my recent post here https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qFPQYM4dfRnE8Cwfx/project-a-web-platform-for-crowdsourcing-impact-estimates-of
I basically agree with your comment, but wanted to emphasize the part I disagree with:
EA is about prioritising in order to (try to) do the most good. The ITN framework is just a heuristic for that, which may very well be wrong in many places; and funding is just one of the resources we can use.
I claim that the ITC framework is not just a heuristic, but captures precisely what we mean by “do the most good”. And I agree, ‘funding’ should be interpreted broadly to include all EA resources (eg. money, labor hours, personal connections, etc).