I also worried about what the impact will be if too many people stop focusing on poverty despite agreeing that existential risk is much more important.
Firstly, I think that successes in global poverty will help establish our credibility. Everyone cares about poverty and if we are having successes in this area, people will respect us more, even if they are skeptical of our other projects. Respect is important as it means that more people will want to join us and that people will provide us with more nuanced criticism.
Secondly, some of the people who join the movement initially to have an impact in terms of global poverty will end up being interesting in other cause areas too. We don’t want to lose this demographic even if we were to have existential risk as dominating our other priorities.
I also worried about what the impact will be if too many people stop focusing on poverty despite agreeing that existential risk is much more important.
Firstly, I think that successes in global poverty will help establish our credibility. Everyone cares about poverty and if we are having successes in this area, people will respect us more, even if they are skeptical of our other projects. Respect is important as it means that more people will want to join us and that people will provide us with more nuanced criticism.
Secondly, some of the people who join the movement initially to have an impact in terms of global poverty will end up being interesting in other cause areas too. We don’t want to lose this demographic even if we were to have existential risk as dominating our other priorities.