(2) Strong longtermism: since almost all expected value lies in the far future, a reasonable heuristic for maximizing EV (note: not the same thing as an account of oneâs fundamental moral concerns) is to not count near-term benefits at all, and instead prioritize those actions that appear the most promising for creating sustained âflow-throughâ or ârippleâ effects that will continue to âpay it forwardâ, so to speak.
As far as I can tell, the (posterior) counterfactual impact of interventions whose effects can be accurately measured, like ones in global health and development, decays to 0 as time goes by, and can be modelled as increasing the value of the world for a few years or decades. If strong longtermism was true, we would expect some interventions to have a constant or increasing effect over time?
Economic growth and population size both seem to have persisting effects. If you limit attention to just what can be âaccurately measuredâ (by some narrow conception that rules out the above), your final judgment will be badly distorted by measurability bias.
Economic growth and population size both seem to have persisting effects.
Could you elaborate? Are you saying that increasing the economy or population size today will make the economy and population size larger for at least centuries? Would you consider a decreasing effect size of fertility- and income-boosting interventions evidence against that?
Right, I take this to be an implication of our best economic and demographic models (respectively).
I donât know what you mean by âa decreasing effect size of fertility- and income-boosting interventionsâ. Whether an intervention has a noticeable short-term effect on these targets? That would seem to address a different question.
I wouldnât expect to be able to identify the particular ripple that occurred in any given case, if thatâs what you mean. So I wouldnât take the failure to identify a particular ripple as evidence that there are no ripple effects. If there are good reasons to reject the standard models, Iâd expect that to emerge in the debates over those macro models, not through micro evidence from RCTs or the like.
Right, I take this to be an implication of our best economic and demographic models (respectively).
Do you think we can trust the predictions of such models over more than a few decades? It looks like increasing population increases longterm income per capita, but not even this is clear (the conclusion relies on extrapolating historical trends, but it is unclear these will hold over long timeframes).
I donât know what you mean by âa decreasing effect size of fertility- and income-boosting interventionsâ. Whether an intervention has a noticeable short-term effect on these targets? That would seem to address a different question.
Yes. I see it is a different question. No difference between the treatment and control group after a few decades could be explained by the benefits spilling over to people outside those groups. However, an increasing population or income gap between the treatment and control group would still be evidence for increasing effects, so a decreasing population or income gap is also evidence againt increasing effects.
Thanks for the post, Richard.
As far as I can tell, the (posterior) counterfactual impact of interventions whose effects can be accurately measured, like ones in global health and development, decays to 0 as time goes by, and can be modelled as increasing the value of the world for a few years or decades. If strong longtermism was true, we would expect some interventions to have a constant or increasing effect over time?
Economic growth and population size both seem to have persisting effects. If you limit attention to just what can be âaccurately measuredâ (by some narrow conception that rules out the above), your final judgment will be badly distorted by measurability bias.
Could you elaborate? Are you saying that increasing the economy or population size today will make the economy and population size larger for at least centuries? Would you consider a decreasing effect size of fertility- and income-boosting interventions evidence against that?
Right, I take this to be an implication of our best economic and demographic models (respectively).
I donât know what you mean by âa decreasing effect size of fertility- and income-boosting interventionsâ. Whether an intervention has a noticeable short-term effect on these targets? That would seem to address a different question.
I wouldnât expect to be able to identify the particular ripple that occurred in any given case, if thatâs what you mean. So I wouldnât take the failure to identify a particular ripple as evidence that there are no ripple effects. If there are good reasons to reject the standard models, Iâd expect that to emerge in the debates over those macro models, not through micro evidence from RCTs or the like.
Do you think we can trust the predictions of such models over more than a few decades? It looks like increasing population increases longterm income per capita, but not even this is clear (the conclusion relies on extrapolating historical trends, but it is unclear these will hold over long timeframes).
Yes. I see it is a different question. No difference between the treatment and control group after a few decades could be explained by the benefits spilling over to people outside those groups. However, an increasing population or income gap between the treatment and control group would still be evidence for increasing effects, so a decreasing population or income gap is also evidence againt increasing effects.