So I think it’s likely that EA efforts with cost-effectiveness comparable or higher than GiveWell top charities will continue to be funded going forwards, rather than “have the rug pulled out from underneath them.
Yeah, some parts of this discussion are more theoretical than practical and I probably should have highlighted this. Nonetheless, I think it’s easy to make the mistake of saying “We’ll never get to point X” and then end up having no idea of what to do if you actually get to point X. If the prominence of long-termism keeps growing within EA, who knows where we’ll end up?
So from a moral uncertainty/trade perspective, it makes a lot of things for EA to dump lots of $s (and relatively little oversight) into shovel-ready neartermism projects, while focusing the limited community building, vetting, etc capacity on longtermism projects.
This is an excellent point and now that you’ve explained this line of reasoning, I agree.
I guess it’s not immediately clear to me to what extent my proposals would shift limited community building and vetting capability away from long-termist projects. If, for example, Giving What We Can had additional money, it’s not clear to me, although it’s certainly possible, that they might hire someone who would otherwise go to work at a long-termist organisation.
I guess it just seems to me that even though there are real human capital and vetting bottlenecks, that you can work around them to a certain extent if you’re willing to just throw money at the issue. Like there has to be something that’s the equivalent of GiveDirectly for long-termism.
Yeah, some parts of this discussion are more theoretical than practical and I probably should have highlighted this. Nonetheless, I think it’s easy to make the mistake of saying “We’ll never get to point X” and then end up having no idea of what to do if you actually get to point X. If the prominence of long-termism keeps growing within EA, who knows where we’ll end up?
Asking that question as a stopping point doesn’t resolve the ambiguity of which of this is theoretical vs. practical.
If the increasing prominence of long-termism like that, in terms of different kinds of resources consumed relative to short-termist efforts, is only theoretical, then the issue is one worth keeping in mind for the future. If it’s a practical concern, then, other things being equal, it could be enough of a priority that determining which specific organizations should distinguish themselves as long-termist may need to begin right now.
The decisions different parties in EA make on this subject will be the main factor determining ‘where we end up’ anyway.
I can generate a rough assessment for resources other than money of what expectations near-termism vs. long-termism is receiving and can anticipate for at least the near future. I can draft an EA Forum post for that by myself but I could co-author it with you and one or more others if you’d like.
Yeah, some parts of this discussion are more theoretical than practical and I probably should have highlighted this. Nonetheless, I think it’s easy to make the mistake of saying “We’ll never get to point X” and then end up having no idea of what to do if you actually get to point X. If the prominence of long-termism keeps growing within EA, who knows where we’ll end up?
This is an excellent point and now that you’ve explained this line of reasoning, I agree.
I guess it’s not immediately clear to me to what extent my proposals would shift limited community building and vetting capability away from long-termist projects. If, for example, Giving What We Can had additional money, it’s not clear to me, although it’s certainly possible, that they might hire someone who would otherwise go to work at a long-termist organisation.
I guess it just seems to me that even though there are real human capital and vetting bottlenecks, that you can work around them to a certain extent if you’re willing to just throw money at the issue. Like there has to be something that’s the equivalent of GiveDirectly for long-termism.
Asking that question as a stopping point doesn’t resolve the ambiguity of which of this is theoretical vs. practical.
If the increasing prominence of long-termism like that, in terms of different kinds of resources consumed relative to short-termist efforts, is only theoretical, then the issue is one worth keeping in mind for the future. If it’s a practical concern, then, other things being equal, it could be enough of a priority that determining which specific organizations should distinguish themselves as long-termist may need to begin right now.
The decisions different parties in EA make on this subject will be the main factor determining ‘where we end up’ anyway.
I can generate a rough assessment for resources other than money of what expectations near-termism vs. long-termism is receiving and can anticipate for at least the near future. I can draft an EA Forum post for that by myself but I could co-author it with you and one or more others if you’d like.
Tbh, I don’t have a huge amount of desire to produce more content on this topic beyond this post.