I don’t regularly see people justifying global poverty interventions based on their flow through effects, and I’d love to see more of this (though, of course, it’s very difficult).
Here’s what you might have meant, which I’d endorse: “I’d love to see more instances of people trying to work out the flow through effects of global poverty interventions, and making decisions with those flow through effects as a very large factor.”
But the word “justifying” could imply the call here is just for people to keep on their current track, but switch the stated rationale. As you might be suggesting elsewhere, including by referencing Beware surprising and suspicious convergence, it seems plausible that some of this is happening, and that it’s not a good thing.
I think if my only choices were for people to keep on their current track for totally non-longtermist reasons or keep on their current track and say or convince themselves that it’s for longtermist reasons, I’d choose the former, because then they’ll probably do a better job of what they’re doing and would be less likely to end up with “bad epistemics”.
I didn’t want to make any strong claims about which interventions people should end up prioritising, only about which effects they should consider to choose interventions.
(Minor, nit-picky point)
Here’s what you might have meant, which I’d endorse: “I’d love to see more instances of people trying to work out the flow through effects of global poverty interventions, and making decisions with those flow through effects as a very large factor.”
But the word “justifying” could imply the call here is just for people to keep on their current track, but switch the stated rationale. As you might be suggesting elsewhere, including by referencing Beware surprising and suspicious convergence, it seems plausible that some of this is happening, and that it’s not a good thing.
I think if my only choices were for people to keep on their current track for totally non-longtermist reasons or keep on their current track and say or convince themselves that it’s for longtermist reasons, I’d choose the former, because then they’ll probably do a better job of what they’re doing and would be less likely to end up with “bad epistemics”.
(See also The Bottom Line.)
Again, nice clarification.
I didn’t want to make any strong claims about which interventions people should end up prioritising, only about which effects they should consider to choose interventions.