Why it’s good: I don’t have time to write a long comment, but this is one of the posts where my first reaction was, “no way,” and then I went and checked the math and was convinced. Since then, I’ve often thought of it and brought it up — I often hear people say or imply, “sure, the scope of X is huge and it’s really neglected, but maybe it’s massively more intractable...” without an explanation for why X is so unusual.
Title: Most problems fall within a 100x tractability range (under certain assumptions)
Author: Thomas Kwa
URL: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4rGpNNoHxxNyEHde3/most-problems-fall-within-a-100x-tractability-range-under
Why it’s good: I don’t have time to write a long comment, but this is one of the posts where my first reaction was, “no way,” and then I went and checked the math and was convinced. Since then, I’ve often thought of it and brought it up — I often hear people say or imply, “sure, the scope of X is huge and it’s really neglected, but maybe it’s massively more intractable...” without an explanation for why X is so unusual.
Thanks for sharing this; I hadn’t read it before and I found it persuasive.