Hmm, I feel we might be talking past each other slightly or something.
My impression is that Happier Lives Institute is already taking or planning to take both: (a) actions largely optimised for helping us identify the most cost-effective actions to improve near-term human wellbeing[1], and evaluate their cost-effectiveness, and (b) actions largely optimised for relatively directly improving near-term human wellbeing.
The fact that youâre doing or planning to do (b) implies that you have at least implicitly prioritised near-term human wellbeing over other issues, right? And since youâve done it before weâve thoroughly considered a wide range of interventions in a wide range of cause areas and decently evaluated their cost-effectiveness, it seems you are in some sense appealing to heuristics for the purpose of cause prioritisation?
So it seems like maybe what youâre saying is mainly that we should remember that our cause priorities should currently be considered quite preliminary and uncertain, rather than that we canât have cause priorities yet?
(Also, FWIW, for tentative cause prioritisation it does seem to me that there are a range of heuristics which can be useful, even if theyâre not totally decisive. I have in mind things including but not limited to ITN. But thereâs already been a lot of debate on the value of many of those specific heuristics, and I imagine you discuss some in your thesis but I havenât read it.)
[1] Iâm not sure if this is precisely how youâd define HLIâs focus. By ânear-termâ I have in mind something like âwithin the next 100 yearsâ.
Hmm, I feel we might be talking past each other slightly or something.
My impression is that Happier Lives Institute is already taking or planning to take both: (a) actions largely optimised for helping us identify the most cost-effective actions to improve near-term human wellbeing[1], and evaluate their cost-effectiveness, and (b) actions largely optimised for relatively directly improving near-term human wellbeing.
The fact that youâre doing or planning to do (b) implies that you have at least implicitly prioritised near-term human wellbeing over other issues, right? And since youâve done it before weâve thoroughly considered a wide range of interventions in a wide range of cause areas and decently evaluated their cost-effectiveness, it seems you are in some sense appealing to heuristics for the purpose of cause prioritisation?
So it seems like maybe what youâre saying is mainly that we should remember that our cause priorities should currently be considered quite preliminary and uncertain, rather than that we canât have cause priorities yet?
(Also, FWIW, for tentative cause prioritisation it does seem to me that there are a range of heuristics which can be useful, even if theyâre not totally decisive. I have in mind things including but not limited to ITN. But thereâs already been a lot of debate on the value of many of those specific heuristics, and I imagine you discuss some in your thesis but I havenât read it.)
[1] Iâm not sure if this is precisely how youâd define HLIâs focus. By ânear-termâ I have in mind something like âwithin the next 100 yearsâ.