I agree that climate change is not neglected but I view that as a bit of a weak steer when deciding whether to work on it, for reasons I outline here. Neglectedness is one determinant of how cost-effective it is to work on a problem, but there are many others. Taking the example of AI safety—it is more neglected than climate change, but I have almost no idea how to make progress on this problem, whereas with climate change there is quite a clear path to making a difference. It also might be true that certain solutions within climate are less neglected than others, e.g. CCS and nuclear are neglected.
I think to make cause prioritisation decisions when the stakes are high, we actually need to sit down and figure out directly which cause is more cost-effective to work on.
Great—thanks for clarifying (and for the great talk)! For what it’s worth, I definitely agree that whilst climate might not be neglected, the urgency, scale and tractability (in some cases) of the issue makes it a reasonable problem to work on. I asked the question above because I thought you specifically said that you didn’t agree with people who said climate wasn’t neglected and I assumed you meant you thought that climate was neglected in some sense.
For John if he checks this: You said that you disagreed with people who said climate change isn’t neglected—what are your reasons for that?
Hello!
I agree that climate change is not neglected but I view that as a bit of a weak steer when deciding whether to work on it, for reasons I outline here. Neglectedness is one determinant of how cost-effective it is to work on a problem, but there are many others. Taking the example of AI safety—it is more neglected than climate change, but I have almost no idea how to make progress on this problem, whereas with climate change there is quite a clear path to making a difference. It also might be true that certain solutions within climate are less neglected than others, e.g. CCS and nuclear are neglected.
I think to make cause prioritisation decisions when the stakes are high, we actually need to sit down and figure out directly which cause is more cost-effective to work on.
Great—thanks for clarifying (and for the great talk)! For what it’s worth, I definitely agree that whilst climate might not be neglected, the urgency, scale and tractability (in some cases) of the issue makes it a reasonable problem to work on. I asked the question above because I thought you specifically said that you didn’t agree with people who said climate wasn’t neglected and I assumed you meant you thought that climate was neglected in some sense.