This is spot-on, and as a matter of decision theory, the question is never “which outcome matters most,” but is rather “what action has the highest impact.” This incorporates the economic issues with marginal investment, as well as the issues with constraints discussed above. I’d recommend Tiago Forte’s series explaining the “Theory of Constraints” (ToC) for a better way to formalize the intuitive model presented in the post; https://praxis.fortelabs.co/theory-of-constraints-101-table-of-contents-8bbb6627915b/
As applied to EA, this notes that we should build clear system models for interventions in order to identify how to help. The ToC model notes that effort expended to help at any point of the system other than the limiting factor is wasted—double the funding but don’t fix the logistic constraints on spending it and you’ve helped not-at-all. (In fact, you might have made the problem worse by increasing the pressure on the logistics management!)
This is spot-on, and as a matter of decision theory, the question is never “which outcome matters most,” but is rather “what action has the highest impact.” This incorporates the economic issues with marginal investment, as well as the issues with constraints discussed above. I’d recommend Tiago Forte’s series explaining the “Theory of Constraints” (ToC) for a better way to formalize the intuitive model presented in the post; https://praxis.fortelabs.co/theory-of-constraints-101-table-of-contents-8bbb6627915b/
As applied to EA, this notes that we should build clear system models for interventions in order to identify how to help. The ToC model notes that effort expended to help at any point of the system other than the limiting factor is wasted—double the funding but don’t fix the logistic constraints on spending it and you’ve helped not-at-all. (In fact, you might have made the problem worse by increasing the pressure on the logistics management!)