I think you’re conflating a couple of different dimensions: degree of complexity, and degree of rigour.
These two are linked: there are some aspects that it’s hard to be rigourous about without a certain level of complexity. But it can also be more work to make a more complex model rigourous, because you need to be careful about more different moving parts.
I think for a calculator like this you should be aiming for low complexity and high rigour. Adding more questions or complicated arguments could put people off. But making elementary mistakes or sleights-of-hand in conversion makes it easier to attack (and people will try to attack it) and dismiss. So keep the number of questions small—addressing existential risk definitely looks like a mistake to me—but try to make them the most appropriate ones, and keep the language precise. This recent post on depicting poverty and Josh’s comment there have some good discussion of what kind of language will avoid pushback.
I think you’re conflating a couple of different dimensions: degree of complexity, and degree of rigour.
These two are linked: there are some aspects that it’s hard to be rigourous about without a certain level of complexity. But it can also be more work to make a more complex model rigourous, because you need to be careful about more different moving parts.
I think for a calculator like this you should be aiming for low complexity and high rigour. Adding more questions or complicated arguments could put people off. But making elementary mistakes or sleights-of-hand in conversion makes it easier to attack (and people will try to attack it) and dismiss. So keep the number of questions small—addressing existential risk definitely looks like a mistake to me—but try to make them the most appropriate ones, and keep the language precise. This recent post on depicting poverty and Josh’s comment there have some good discussion of what kind of language will avoid pushback.
Great comment, you’ve convinced me. Thanks for the link as well, it looks interesting.