If we can spend money today to permanently reduce existential risk, or to permanently improve the welfare of the global poor, then it is always more valuable to do that action ASAP rather than wait.
This seems straightforwardly untrue, because you may be able to permanently reduce existential risk more cheaply in the future.
I also think (but am not sure) that Will doesn’t include solving the knowledge problem as part of “direct action”, and so your first critique is not very relevant to the choice between patient philanthropy and direct action, because probably you’ll want to gain knowledge in either case.
I agree with your criticism of my second argument. What I should have instead said is a bit different. There are actions whose value decreases over time. For instance, all else being equal it is better to implement a policy which reduces existential risk sooner rather than later. Patient philanthropy makes sense only if either (a) you expect the growth of your resources to outpace the value lost by failing to act now, or (b) you expect cheaper opportunities to arise in the future. I don’t think there are great reasons to believe either of these is true (or indeed false, I’m not very certain on the issue).
There are two issues with knowledge, and I probably should have separated them more clearly. The more important one is that the kind of decision-relevant information Will is asking for, that is, knowing when and how to spend your money optimally, may well just be unattainable. Optimal strategies with imperfect information probably look very different from optimal strategies with perfect information.
A secondary issue is that you actually need to generate the knowledge. I agree it is unclear whether Will is considering the knowledge problem as part of “direct” or “patient” philanthropy. But since knowledge production might eat up a large chunk of your resources, and since some types of knowledge may be best produced by trying to do direct work, plausibly the “patient philanthropist” ends up spending a lot of resources over time. This is not the image of patient philanthropy I originally had, but maybe I’ve been misunderstanding what Will was envisaging.
This seems straightforwardly untrue, because you may be able to permanently reduce existential risk more cheaply in the future.
I also think (but am not sure) that Will doesn’t include solving the knowledge problem as part of “direct action”, and so your first critique is not very relevant to the choice between patient philanthropy and direct action, because probably you’ll want to gain knowledge in either case.
I agree with your criticism of my second argument. What I should have instead said is a bit different. There are actions whose value decreases over time. For instance, all else being equal it is better to implement a policy which reduces existential risk sooner rather than later. Patient philanthropy makes sense only if either (a) you expect the growth of your resources to outpace the value lost by failing to act now, or (b) you expect cheaper opportunities to arise in the future. I don’t think there are great reasons to believe either of these is true (or indeed false, I’m not very certain on the issue).
There are two issues with knowledge, and I probably should have separated them more clearly. The more important one is that the kind of decision-relevant information Will is asking for, that is, knowing when and how to spend your money optimally, may well just be unattainable. Optimal strategies with imperfect information probably look very different from optimal strategies with perfect information.
A secondary issue is that you actually need to generate the knowledge. I agree it is unclear whether Will is considering the knowledge problem as part of “direct” or “patient” philanthropy. But since knowledge production might eat up a large chunk of your resources, and since some types of knowledge may be best produced by trying to do direct work, plausibly the “patient philanthropist” ends up spending a lot of resources over time. This is not the image of patient philanthropy I originally had, but maybe I’ve been misunderstanding what Will was envisaging.