1. Timescales. You do not define what you mean by long-term policy and I think this context is useful for people. I have come to define it (for the UK) as any policy that looks beyond the length of time that the policy maker expects to be in a role or the current government expects to be in power. For the UK this means policy that looks beyond the next 3-5 years. I think we should recognise that this is very different from timescale used normally when people in the EA community talk about long-termism. (As an analogy note that in animal rights policy the aim is generally to suggest policy that improves welfare (eg banning small cages) with the long run goal of ending factory farming).
An explicit statement of policy intent setting out that policy makers should think long-term.
Assigning responsibilities to address risks, including long-term risks, to Ministers.
Targets setting and expectations to meet those targets (target for spending on prevention targets for long term projects)
Central coordination body(s) on long term issues and long term risks across government.
Explanatory Notes to Government Bills, or impact assessments, could state the long-term risks and impacts of the Bill or policy.
Manifesto for the future could be required form parties prior to elections
Youth voting (eg lower voting age to 16)
A formal guide to best practice on how to make policy that balances the needs of present and future generations.
Future generations accounting mechanisms such as Intergenerational Impact Assessments or Natural Capital Accounting.
Horizon scanning and foresight work (skills, support, tools and training).
Risk management for civil servants (skills, support, tools and training).
Connections between academia and science and government.
A discount rate that treats generations equally.
Workforce management to minimise turnover on long-term projects
Transparency. Through publication of best practice, targets set, statistics, long term policy impacts, etc
Oversight by existing government oversight bodies, such as the National Audit Office
An expert advisory panel with representatives of various futures research institutions
Innovative deliberative political processes such as citizens assemblies
Government underwriting reinsurance or mandating insurance for extreme catastrophes.
Improving cross-party work (cross-party committees etc) and reducing partisanism (so each change in gov does not destroy the work of the previous gov)
Workforce management or What-Works centers to retain institutional memory (so best practice improves over time and is not forgotten and relearned)
Ending democracy
A long-termism responsibility on the neutral civil service
Tying politicians pay to their performance to be evaluated post hoc
Earlier release of public records so politicians can be held to account for their decision
More transparency or when and where politicians are making decisions that affect the future and what they are deciding.
Etc
3. Evaluation criteria. I am not convinced by your evaluation criteria. Firstly I think there needs to be a decision if you are evaluating policies globally or for a specific country. I have not given this much though but assuming globally i would evaluate as such:
Evidence. Is there good evidence that this policy would work? Where the best evidence is that this policy is already in use and already working in many places, medium would be lab or academic evidence, low would be that not currently evidence but could be.
Effectiveness. How effectively could this design promote value in the very long-run?
Implementability. How difficult to implement is this policy. Is the implementation all in the details and easy to get wrong. Is it the kind of think people tend to get wrong? Are there at least some countries that would see this as politically acceptable from a cross-party base?
5. Collaboration. Given I am basically doing exactly the same work as you (but focused solely on the UK) and you were unaware of the work Haydn shared, perhaps we should be collaborating more. Will drop you an email.
1. Good point on clarifying the timescale for the sake of the report. I think the timescale you define for the UK is about right for narrowing the scope of the institutions considered by the report. Then the “effectiveness” evaluation criterion can do the work of identifying which institutions are best by longtermist lights, ranking institutions cardinally as a function of, among other things, their temporal reach.
2. You did previously share your list with me and I’m glad you’ve reshared it here. Ideas you mention here did not end up on the list I shared to the EA Forum for one of a few reasons: either there exists a similar proposal in the document already or the suggested change is in my list of smaller, incremental changes or I excluded it because I wanted to prioritize concrete, particular proposals over abstract, general ideas. Some of them simply involve ideas that are still on my to-read list. All of your suggestions are included in a more complete list off-site.
3. Max Stauffer also recommended adding a criterion based on strength of evidence. I think this is a good idea. I also like your suggestion to broaden my “political feasibility” criterion to “overall implementability.” As you imply, there are considerations beyond political feasibility that are relevant to a design’s implementability. I’m incompletely convinced that symbolism should be ignored completely in the context of this report, but I have been convinced by your point that symbolic value depends on contextual interaction with a lot of things, and an otherwise uninspiring change can function as a symbol with the right packaging.
Thanks again for reaching out here and via email. I’ll be in touch about collaboration in just a moment.
Hi Tyler
I have a lot of thoughts.
1. Timescales. You do not define what you mean by long-term policy and I think this context is useful for people. I have come to define it (for the UK) as any policy that looks beyond the length of time that the policy maker expects to be in a role or the current government expects to be in power. For the UK this means policy that looks beyond the next 3-5 years. I think we should recognise that this is very different from timescale used normally when people in the EA community talk about long-termism. (As an analogy note that in animal rights policy the aim is generally to suggest policy that improves welfare (eg banning small cages) with the long run goal of ending factory farming).
2. Other ideas for you. I thought I had already shared my list with you (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qf2bMs_Bcz6mBUFOLqu-Elc3_QAYatMO/edit?dls=true) but maybe I had not. Here are 25+ ideas I have that are not on your list, I am sure I can come up with more if needed:
An explicit statement of policy intent setting out that policy makers should think long-term.
Assigning responsibilities to address risks, including long-term risks, to Ministers.
Targets setting and expectations to meet those targets (target for spending on prevention targets for long term projects)
Central coordination body(s) on long term issues and long term risks across government.
Explanatory Notes to Government Bills, or impact assessments, could state the long-term risks and impacts of the Bill or policy.
Manifesto for the future could be required form parties prior to elections
Youth voting (eg lower voting age to 16)
A formal guide to best practice on how to make policy that balances the needs of present and future generations.
Future generations accounting mechanisms such as Intergenerational Impact Assessments or Natural Capital Accounting.
Horizon scanning and foresight work (skills, support, tools and training).
Risk management for civil servants (skills, support, tools and training).
Connections between academia and science and government.
A discount rate that treats generations equally.
Workforce management to minimise turnover on long-term projects
Transparency. Through publication of best practice, targets set, statistics, long term policy impacts, etc
Oversight by existing government oversight bodies, such as the National Audit Office
An expert advisory panel with representatives of various futures research institutions
Innovative deliberative political processes such as citizens assemblies
Government underwriting reinsurance or mandating insurance for extreme catastrophes.
Improving cross-party work (cross-party committees etc) and reducing partisanism (so each change in gov does not destroy the work of the previous gov)
Workforce management or What-Works centers to retain institutional memory (so best practice improves over time and is not forgotten and relearned)
Ending democracy
A long-termism responsibility on the neutral civil service
Tying politicians pay to their performance to be evaluated post hoc
Earlier release of public records so politicians can be held to account for their decision
More transparency or when and where politicians are making decisions that affect the future and what they are deciding.
Etc
3. Evaluation criteria. I am not convinced by your evaluation criteria. Firstly I think there needs to be a decision if you are evaluating policies globally or for a specific country. I have not given this much though but assuming globally i would evaluate as such:
Evidence. Is there good evidence that this policy would work? Where the best evidence is that this policy is already in use and already working in many places, medium would be lab or academic evidence, low would be that not currently evidence but could be.
Effectiveness. How effectively could this design promote value in the very long-run?
Implementability. How difficult to implement is this policy. Is the implementation all in the details and easy to get wrong. Is it the kind of think people tend to get wrong? Are there at least some countries that would see this as politically acceptable from a cross-party base?
I would ignore functioning as a symbol as part of the policy criteria as it is not always that simple. Eg: in the UK we are creating a symbol with a Future Generations Bill which combines about 10 different proposals. Eg see: https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/2019-19/wellbeingoffuturegenerations.html
4. Action. I think there is enough research out there for people to be cautiously trying to create change as we are looking to do in the UK. Eg 266 Parliamentary candidates have signed up to the Big Issues Future Generations Pledge: https://www.bigissue.com/latest/heres-how-you-can-get-your-mp-to-back-the-future-generations-pledge/
5. Collaboration. Given I am basically doing exactly the same work as you (but focused solely on the UK) and you were unaware of the work Haydn shared, perhaps we should be collaborating more. Will drop you an email.
I hope that helps,
Sam
Hi Sam,
This is helpful indeed. Thanks for the reply!
1. Good point on clarifying the timescale for the sake of the report. I think the timescale you define for the UK is about right for narrowing the scope of the institutions considered by the report. Then the “effectiveness” evaluation criterion can do the work of identifying which institutions are best by longtermist lights, ranking institutions cardinally as a function of, among other things, their temporal reach.
2. You did previously share your list with me and I’m glad you’ve reshared it here. Ideas you mention here did not end up on the list I shared to the EA Forum for one of a few reasons: either there exists a similar proposal in the document already or the suggested change is in my list of smaller, incremental changes or I excluded it because I wanted to prioritize concrete, particular proposals over abstract, general ideas. Some of them simply involve ideas that are still on my to-read list. All of your suggestions are included in a more complete list off-site.
3. Max Stauffer also recommended adding a criterion based on strength of evidence. I think this is a good idea. I also like your suggestion to broaden my “political feasibility” criterion to “overall implementability.” As you imply, there are considerations beyond political feasibility that are relevant to a design’s implementability. I’m incompletely convinced that symbolism should be ignored completely in the context of this report, but I have been convinced by your point that symbolic value depends on contextual interaction with a lot of things, and an otherwise uninspiring change can function as a symbol with the right packaging.
Thanks again for reaching out here and via email. I’ll be in touch about collaboration in just a moment.