I think the marginal value of a pre-order of What We Owe the Future is much higher than a pre-order of Gates’s book, as Gates’s book has a much higher baseline probability of ending up as a bestseller and receiving significant press coverage thanks to Gates’s fame.
(Knowing almost nothing about this) I think a guess is that Gates is very worldly (even among his reference class of extremely wealthy businessmen) and already has a muscular press/PR team/persona.
This means his book already might be well publicized, and the returns to further input might be much lower than MacAskill’s.
Not entirely related: I took a very brief Google search and found this article, which is opinionated, non-positive but also sort of a mainstream take by the left (the magazine is literally called Jacobin).
I guess the point of showing this article is that it illustrates the interactions and complexities involved when an individual, even 100% altruistically, executes complex public activity.
If we think we should all buy What We Owe The Future to ensure it gets lots of press, should we buy this book too?
I think the marginal value of a pre-order of What We Owe the Future is much higher than a pre-order of Gates’s book, as Gates’s book has a much higher baseline probability of ending up as a bestseller and receiving significant press coverage thanks to Gates’s fame.
(Knowing almost nothing about this) I think a guess is that Gates is very worldly (even among his reference class of extremely wealthy businessmen) and already has a muscular press/PR team/persona.
This means his book already might be well publicized, and the returns to further input might be much lower than MacAskill’s.
Not entirely related: I took a very brief Google search and found this article, which is opinionated, non-positive but also sort of a mainstream take by the left (the magazine is literally called Jacobin).
I guess the point of showing this article is that it illustrates the interactions and complexities involved when an individual, even 100% altruistically, executes complex public activity.
Oh, Dylan Matthews has written a piece on Jacobin.
This is sort of an interesting rabbit hole (with positive EV for some readers, maybe I guess?)
Damn, they go hard on design:
Without thinking much over it, I’d say yes. I’m not sure buying a book will get it more coverage in the news though.