As youâve noted in the comments, you model this as $1bn total, rather than $1bn a year. Ignoring the fact that the person affecting advocate (PAA) only cares about present people (at time of initial decision to spend), if the cost-effectivneness is even 10 lower then it probably no long counts as a good buy.
No, in my comments I note precisely the opposite. The model assumes 1B per year. If the cost is 1B total to reduce risk for the subsequent century, the numbers get more optimistic (100x optimistic if you buy counterpart-y views, but still somewhat better if you discount the benefit in future years by how many from the initial cohort remain alive).
Further, the model is time-uniform, so it can collapse into a âI can spend 1B in 2018 to reduce xrisk in this year by 1% from a 0.01% baseline, and the same number gets spit out. So if a PAA buys these numbers (as Alex says, I think my offers skew conservative to xrisk consensus if we take them as amortized across-century risk, they might be about right/ââoptimisticâ if they are taken as an estimate for this year alone), this looks an approximately good buy.
Population ethics generally, and PA views within them, are far from my expertise. I guess Iâd be surprised if pricing by TRIA gives a huge discount, as I take most people consider themselves pretty psychologically continuous from the ages of ~15 onwards. If this isnât true, or consensus view amongst PAAs is âTRIA, and weâre mistaken to our degree of psychological continuityâ, then this plausibly shaves off an order of magnitude-ish and plonks it more in the âprobably not a good buyâ category.
In which case Iâm not understanding your model. The âCost per life yearâ box is $1bn/âEV. How is that not a one off of $1bn? What have I missed?
If the cost is 1B total to reduce risk for the subsequent century
As noted above, if people only live 70 years, then on PAA thereâs no point wondering what happens after 70 years.
I guess Iâd be surprised if pricing by TRIA gives a huge discount
yeah, I donât think people have looked at this enough to form views on the figure. McMahan does want to discount future wellbeing for people by some amount, but is reluctant to be pushed into giving a number. Iâd guess itâs something like 2% a year. The effect something like assuming a 2% pure time discount.
Ah. So the EV is for a single year. But I still only see $1bn. So your number is âthis is the cost per life year saved if we spend the money this year and it causes an instanteous reduction in X-risk for this yearâ?
So your figure is the cost effectiveness of reducing instanteous X-risk at Tn, where Tn is now, whenever now is. But itâs not the cost effectiveness of that reduction at Tf, where Tf is some year in the future, because the further in the future this occurs, the less the EV is on PAA. If Iâm wondering what the cost-effectiveness, from the perspective of T0, it would be to spend $1bn in 10 years and cause a reduction at T10, on your model I increase the mean age by 10 years to 48, the average cost per year become $12k. From the perspective of T10, reducing X-risk in the way you say at T10 is, again $9k.
By contrast, for totalists the calculations would be the same (excepting inflation, etc.).
Also, not sure why my comment was downvoted. I wasnât being rude (or, I think, stupid) and I think itâs unhelpful to downvote without explanation as it just looks petty and feels unfriendly.
Also, not sure why my comment was downvoted. I wasnât being rude (or, I think, stupid) and I think itâs unhelpful to downvote without explanation as it just looks petty and feels unfriendly.
I didnât downvote, but:
In which case Iâm not understanding your model. The âCost per life yearâ box is $1bn/âEV. How is that not a one off of $1bn? What have I missed?
The last two sentences of this come across as pretty curt to me. I think there is a wide range in how people interpret things like these, so it is probably just a bit of a communication style mismatch. (I think I have noticed a myself having a similar reaction to a few of your comments before where I donât think you meant any rudeness).
I think itâs unhelpful to downvote without explanation as it just looks petty and feels unfriendly.
I agree with this on some level, but Iâm not sure I want there to be uneven costs to upvoting/âdownvoting content. I think there is also an unfriendliness vs. enforcing standards tradeoff where the marginal decisions will typically look petty.
I didnât see it as all that snipey. I think downvotes should be reserved for more severe tonal misdemeanours than this.
Thereâs a bit of difficult balance between necessary policing of tone and engagement with substantive arguments. I think as a rule people tend to talk about tone too much in arguments to the detriment of talking about the substance.
If this isnât true, or consensus view amongst PAAs is âTRIA, and weâre mistaken to our degree of psychological continuityâ, then this plausibly shaves off an order of magnitude-ish and plonks it more in the âprobably not a good buyâ category.
It would also have the same (or worse) effect on other things that save lives (e.g. AMF) so it is not totally clear how much worse x-risk would look compared to everything else. (Although perhaps e.g. deworming would come out very well, if it just reduces suffering for a short-ish timescale. (The fact that it mostly effects children might sway things the other way though!))
It would also have the same (or worse) effect on other things that save lives (e.g. AMF)
I agree. As I said here, TRIA implies you should care much less about saving young lives. The upshot for TRIA vs PAA combined with the life-comparative account is you should focused more on improving lives than saving lives if you like TRIA.>
Although perhaps e.g. deworming would come out very well, if it just reduces suffering for a short-ish timescale
Just on this note, GiveWell claim only 2% of the value of deworming comes from short term health benefits and 98% from economic gains (see their latest cost-effectiveness spreadsheet), so they donât think the value is on the suffering-reducing end.
No, in my comments I note precisely the opposite. The model assumes 1B per year. If the cost is 1B total to reduce risk for the subsequent century, the numbers get more optimistic (100x optimistic if you buy counterpart-y views, but still somewhat better if you discount the benefit in future years by how many from the initial cohort remain alive).
Further, the model is time-uniform, so it can collapse into a âI can spend 1B in 2018 to reduce xrisk in this year by 1% from a 0.01% baseline, and the same number gets spit out. So if a PAA buys these numbers (as Alex says, I think my offers skew conservative to xrisk consensus if we take them as amortized across-century risk, they might be about right/ââoptimisticâ if they are taken as an estimate for this year alone), this looks an approximately good buy.
Population ethics generally, and PA views within them, are far from my expertise. I guess Iâd be surprised if pricing by TRIA gives a huge discount, as I take most people consider themselves pretty psychologically continuous from the ages of ~15 onwards. If this isnât true, or consensus view amongst PAAs is âTRIA, and weâre mistaken to our degree of psychological continuityâ, then this plausibly shaves off an order of magnitude-ish and plonks it more in the âprobably not a good buyâ category.
In which case Iâm not understanding your model. The âCost per life yearâ box is $1bn/âEV. How is that not a one off of $1bn? What have I missed?
As noted above, if people only live 70 years, then on PAA thereâs no point wondering what happens after 70 years.
yeah, I donât think people have looked at this enough to form views on the figure. McMahan does want to discount future wellbeing for people by some amount, but is reluctant to be pushed into giving a number. Iâd guess itâs something like 2% a year. The effect something like assuming a 2% pure time discount.
The EV in question is the reduction in x-risk for a single year, not across the century. Iâll change the wording to make this clearer.
Ah. So the EV is for a single year. But I still only see $1bn. So your number is âthis is the cost per life year saved if we spend the money this year and it causes an instanteous reduction in X-risk for this yearâ?
So your figure is the cost effectiveness of reducing instanteous X-risk at Tn, where Tn is now, whenever now is. But itâs not the cost effectiveness of that reduction at Tf, where Tf is some year in the future, because the further in the future this occurs, the less the EV is on PAA. If Iâm wondering what the cost-effectiveness, from the perspective of T0, it would be to spend $1bn in 10 years and cause a reduction at T10, on your model I increase the mean age by 10 years to 48, the average cost per year become $12k. From the perspective of T10, reducing X-risk in the way you say at T10 is, again $9k.
By contrast, for totalists the calculations would be the same (excepting inflation, etc.).
Also, not sure why my comment was downvoted. I wasnât being rude (or, I think, stupid) and I think itâs unhelpful to downvote without explanation as it just looks petty and feels unfriendly.
I didnât downvote, but:
The last two sentences of this come across as pretty curt to me. I think there is a wide range in how people interpret things like these, so it is probably just a bit of a communication style mismatch. (I think I have noticed a myself having a similar reaction to a few of your comments before where I donât think you meant any rudeness).
I agree with this on some level, but Iâm not sure I want there to be uneven costs to upvoting/âdownvoting content. I think there is also an unfriendliness vs. enforcing standards tradeoff where the marginal decisions will typically look petty.
Yeah, on re-reading, the âHow is that not a one off of $1bn?â does seem snippy. Okay. Fair cop.
I didnât see it as all that snipey. I think downvotes should be reserved for more severe tonal misdemeanours than this.
Thereâs a bit of difficult balance between necessary policing of tone and engagement with substantive arguments. I think as a rule people tend to talk about tone too much in arguments to the detriment of talking about the substance.
It would also have the same (or worse) effect on other things that save lives (e.g. AMF) so it is not totally clear how much worse x-risk would look compared to everything else. (Although perhaps e.g. deworming would come out very well, if it just reduces suffering for a short-ish timescale. (The fact that it mostly effects children might sway things the other way though!))
I agree. As I said here, TRIA implies you should care much less about saving young lives. The upshot for TRIA vs PAA combined with the life-comparative account is you should focused more on improving lives than saving lives if you like TRIA.>
Just on this note, GiveWell claim only 2% of the value of deworming comes from short term health benefits and 98% from economic gains (see their latest cost-effectiveness spreadsheet), so they donât think the value is on the suffering-reducing end.