Thanks very much for your comments. I almost entirely approve/agree, and I think this is all useful. (And I’m sorry to quote you in particular, but that quote was one good example of the phenomenon). I’d just add two things:
Had I known that a PAC would spend millions, there’s some chance I wouldn’t have donated (my internal model would have changed, but it’s hard to say exactly how).
I wasn’t surprised that Protect Our Future intervened (though I was surprised by how much it spent). Others with relevant knowledge might have been able to confidently predict that or other relevant factors in advance. I think donating was correct in your epistemic state. But in general, even if one believes donating to X is higher EV than donating to anything else, it doesn’t imply that one should donate to X, if there’s also the option to learn more first. Repeating something from my post, it’s not worth spending so much time to guide a donation of $3K, but for a community donation of ~$900K it seems worth being more methodological.
I think that the “socially punished” sentence of Habryka’s comment was wrong.
I tentatively agree. But harm arises even if there’s no social punishment—just from the fear of social punishment leading to self-censorship.
Thanks very much for your comments. I almost entirely approve/agree, and I think this is all useful. (And I’m sorry to quote you in particular, but that quote was one good example of the phenomenon). I’d just add two things:
I wasn’t surprised that Protect Our Future intervened (though I was surprised by how much it spent). Others with relevant knowledge might have been able to confidently predict that or other relevant factors in advance. I think donating was correct in your epistemic state. But in general, even if one believes donating to X is higher EV than donating to anything else, it doesn’t imply that one should donate to X, if there’s also the option to learn more first. Repeating something from my post, it’s not worth spending so much time to guide a donation of $3K, but for a community donation of ~$900K it seems worth being more methodological.
I tentatively agree. But harm arises even if there’s no social punishment—just from the fear of social punishment leading to self-censorship.