If you would not trade $10 billion for 3 weeks that could be because:
I’m more optimistic about empirical research / think the time iterating at the end when we have the systems is significantly more important than the time now when we can only try to reason about them.
you think money will be much less useful than I expect it to be
I wouldn’t trade $10 billion, but I think empirical research is good. It just seems like we can already afford a bunch of the stuff we want, and I expect we will continue to get lots of money without needing to sacrifice 3 weeks.
I also think people are generally bad consequentialists on questions like these. There is an obvious loss, and a speculative gain. The speculative gain looks very shiny because you make lots of money and end up doing something cool. The obvious loss does not seem very important because its not immediately world destroying, and somewhat boring.
Didn’t see the second part there.
I wouldn’t trade $10 billion, but I think empirical research is good. It just seems like we can already afford a bunch of the stuff we want, and I expect we will continue to get lots of money without needing to sacrifice 3 weeks.
I also think people are generally bad consequentialists on questions like these. There is an obvious loss, and a speculative gain. The speculative gain looks very shiny because you make lots of money and end up doing something cool. The obvious loss does not seem very important because its not immediately world destroying, and somewhat boring.