I was personally struck by how sensitive portfolios are to even modest levels of risk aversion. I don’t know what “correct” level of risk aversion is, or what the optimal decision procedure is in practice (even though most of my theoretical sympathies lie with expected value maximisation). Even so, seeing how introducing bits of risk aversion, even when using parameters relatively generous towards x-risk, still points towards spending most resources on animals (and sometimes global health) has led me to believe that type of work is robustly better than I used to think. There are many uncertainties and I don’t think EA should be reduced to any one of its cause-areas but, especially given this update, I would be sad to see the animal space shrink in relative size any more than it has.
I was personally struck by how sensitive portfolios are to even modest levels of risk aversion. I don’t know what “correct” level of risk aversion is, or what the optimal decision procedure is in practice (even though most of my theoretical sympathies lie with expected value maximisation). Even so, seeing how introducing bits of risk aversion, even when using parameters relatively generous towards x-risk, still points towards spending most resources on animals (and sometimes global health) has led me to believe that type of work is robustly better than I used to think. There are many uncertainties and I don’t think EA should be reduced to any one of its cause-areas but, especially given this update, I would be sad to see the animal space shrink in relative size any more than it has.