I agree with the argument and only want to comment on an aside you made.
“I’m aware that some folks around CEA assign very high rates of return, in excess of 30% / year, to investment in movement-building and outreach. I think this is an epistemic error, but that would probably be a longer discussion”
This seems like a very important discussion. Could you outline your argument? If anyone else has an opinion on this please do comment! I’m mainly interested in how to decide between prioritisation research and capacity-building. These causes seem some of the most promising right now so I think we’re facing this decision and it’s important to get it right.
I don’t know Paul’s reply, but my guess is it would be a similar argument as he made about cash transfers: There might be some short-term multiplier, but in the long run the growth tends to diffuse out, because there are limits to really high growth being sustained for a really long time. This view would be similar to my own skepticism about the “haste consideration” ( http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/haste-consideration-revisited.html ).
Thanks for this post!
I agree with the argument and only want to comment on an aside you made.
“I’m aware that some folks around CEA assign very high rates of return, in excess of 30% / year, to investment in movement-building and outreach. I think this is an epistemic error, but that would probably be a longer discussion”
This seems like a very important discussion. Could you outline your argument? If anyone else has an opinion on this please do comment! I’m mainly interested in how to decide between prioritisation research and capacity-building. These causes seem some of the most promising right now so I think we’re facing this decision and it’s important to get it right.
I don’t know Paul’s reply, but my guess is it would be a similar argument as he made about cash transfers: There might be some short-term multiplier, but in the long run the growth tends to diffuse out, because there are limits to really high growth being sustained for a really long time. This view would be similar to my own skepticism about the “haste consideration” ( http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/haste-consideration-revisited.html ).