Haha, I came up with that example as well. You’re thinking about this in the same way I did!
I think to say that one is the “actual objective” is not very rigorous. Although I’m saying this from a place of making that same argument. It does answer a valid question of “how much money should one donate to get an expected 1 unit of good” (which is also really easy to communicate, dollars per life saved is much easier to talk about than lives saved per dollar). I’ve been thinking about it for a while and put a comment under Edo Arad’s one.
As for the second point about simple going E(cost)E(effect). I agree that this is likely an error, and you have a good counterexample.
Haha, I came up with that example as well. You’re thinking about this in the same way I did!
I think to say that one is the “actual objective” is not very rigorous. Although I’m saying this from a place of making that same argument. It does answer a valid question of “how much money should one donate to get an expected 1 unit of good” (which is also really easy to communicate, dollars per life saved is much easier to talk about than lives saved per dollar). I’ve been thinking about it for a while and put a comment under Edo Arad’s one.
As for the second point about simple going E(cost)E(effect). I agree that this is likely an error, and you have a good counterexample.
I still don’t think it’s an error, added a comment with my perspective, curious to hear your thoughts!
Indeed it was common feedback, but I don’t understand it fully, maybe we add a section on it to the post if we reach an agreement.