If it’s extremely difficult to figure out the direct effects of near-term interventions, then maybe it’s proportionally harder to figure out long term effects—even to the point of complex cluelessness becoming de facto simple cluelessness.
Some people argue from a “skeptical prior”: simply put, most efforts to do good fail. The international development community certainly seems like a “broad coalition of trustworthy people”, but their best guesses are almost useless without hard evidence.
If you’re GiveWell-level pessimistic about charities having their intended impact even with real time monitoring and evaluation of measurable impacts, you might be utterly and simply clueless about all long term effects. In that case, long term EV is symmetrical and short term effects dominate.
If it’s extremely difficult to figure out the direct effects of near-term interventions, then maybe it’s proportionally harder to figure out long term effects—even to the point of complex cluelessness becoming de facto simple cluelessness.
Some people argue from a “skeptical prior”: simply put, most efforts to do good fail. The international development community certainly seems like a “broad coalition of trustworthy people”, but their best guesses are almost useless without hard evidence.
If you’re GiveWell-level pessimistic about charities having their intended impact even with real time monitoring and evaluation of measurable impacts, you might be utterly and simply clueless about all long term effects. In that case, long term EV is symmetrical and short term effects dominate.