For what it’s worth, I definitely don’t think we should throw our hands up and say that everything is too uncertain, so we should do nothing. Instead we have to accept that we’re going to have high levels of uncertainty, and make decisions based on that. I’m not sure it’s reasonable to say that GiveWell top charities are a “safe bet”, which means they don’t have a clear advantage over far future interventions. You could argue that we should favor GW top charities because they have better feedback loops—I discuss this here.
For what it’s worth, I definitely don’t think we should throw our hands up and say that everything is too uncertain, so we should do nothing. Instead we have to accept that we’re going to have high levels of uncertainty, and make decisions based on that. I’m not sure it’s reasonable to say that GiveWell top charities are a “safe bet”, which means they don’t have a clear advantage over far future interventions. You could argue that we should favor GW top charities because they have better feedback loops—I discuss this here.