I basically agree with the claims and conclusions here, but I think about this kind of differently.
I don’t know whether donating to AMF makes the world better or worse. But this doesn’t seem very important, because I don’t think that AMF is a particularly plausible candidate for the best way to improve the long term future anyway—it would be a reasonably surprising coincidence if the top recommended way to improve human lives right now was also the most leveraged way to improve the long term future.
So our attitude should be more like “I don’t know if AMF is good or bad, but it’s probably not nearly as impactful as the best things I’ll be able to find, and I have limited time to evaluate giving opportunities, so I should allocate my time elsewhere”, rather than “I can’t tell if AMF is good or bad, so I’ll think about longtermist giving opportunities instead.”
“I don’t know if AMF is good or bad, but it’s probably not nearly as impactful as the best things I’ll be able to find, and I have limited time to evaluate giving opportunities, so I should allocate my time elsewhere”
What do you mean by allocate your time “elsewhere”?
My guess is that Buck means something like: “spend my time to identify and execute ‘longtermist’ interventions, i.e. ones explicitly designed to be best from the perspective of improving the long-term future—rather than spending the time to figure out whether donating to AMF is net good or net bad”.
I basically agree with the claims and conclusions here, but I think about this kind of differently.
I don’t know whether donating to AMF makes the world better or worse. But this doesn’t seem very important, because I don’t think that AMF is a particularly plausible candidate for the best way to improve the long term future anyway—it would be a reasonably surprising coincidence if the top recommended way to improve human lives right now was also the most leveraged way to improve the long term future.
So our attitude should be more like “I don’t know if AMF is good or bad, but it’s probably not nearly as impactful as the best things I’ll be able to find, and I have limited time to evaluate giving opportunities, so I should allocate my time elsewhere”, rather than “I can’t tell if AMF is good or bad, so I’ll think about longtermist giving opportunities instead.”
Do you agree with the decision-making frame I offered here, or are you suggesting doing something different from that?
What’s your distribution for the value of donating to AMF?
What do you mean by allocate your time “elsewhere”?
My guess is that Buck means something like: “spend my time to identify and execute ‘longtermist’ interventions, i.e. ones explicitly designed to be best from the perspective of improving the long-term future—rather than spending the time to figure out whether donating to AMF is net good or net bad”.
This is indeed what I meant, thanks.
How does this differ from response 5 in the post?