I don’t want to interpret that post on flow-through effects as representing anything other than Holden’s personal opinion, but it does strike me as pretty naive (in the mathematical sense of “you only thought of the most obvious conclusion and didn’t go into any depth on this”). GiveWell’s lack of (public) reasoning on flow-through effects is a large part of why I don’t follow its charity recommendations.
The post on differential progress is a step in the right direction, and I’m generally more confident that Nick Beckstead is thinking correctly about flow-through effects than I am about anyone else at GiveWell.
EDIT: To Holden’s credit, he does discuss how global catastrophic risks could make technological/economic harmful, so it’s not like he hasn’t thought about this at all.
I don’t want to interpret that post on flow-through effects as representing anything other than Holden’s personal opinion, but it does strike me as pretty naive (in the mathematical sense of “you only thought of the most obvious conclusion and didn’t go into any depth on this”). GiveWell’s lack of (public) reasoning on flow-through effects is a large part of why I don’t follow its charity recommendations.
The post on differential progress is a step in the right direction, and I’m generally more confident that Nick Beckstead is thinking correctly about flow-through effects than I am about anyone else at GiveWell.
EDIT: To Holden’s credit, he does discuss how global catastrophic risks could make technological/economic harmful, so it’s not like he hasn’t thought about this at all.
The level of confidence in ‘broad empowerment’ as a force for good has always been my biggest disagreement with GiveWell.