Also, if you’re aware of Rethink Priorities/Luisa Rodriguez’s work on modelling the odds and impacts of nuclear war (e.g., here), I’d be interested to hear whether you think making parameter estimates was worthwhile in that case. (And perhaps, if so, whether you think you’d have predicted that beforehand, vs being surprised that there ended up being a useful product.)
This is because that seems like the most similar existing piece of work I’m aware of (in methodology rather than topic). And to me it seems like that project was probably worthwhile, including the parameter estimates, and that it provided outputs that are perhaps more useful and less massively uncertain than I would’ve predicted. And that seems like weak evidence that parameter estimates could be worthwhile in this case as well.
Also, if you’re aware of Rethink Priorities/Luisa Rodriguez’s work on modelling the odds and impacts of nuclear war (e.g., here), I’d be interested to hear whether you think making parameter estimates was worthwhile in that case. (And perhaps, if so, whether you think you’d have predicted that beforehand, vs being surprised that there ended up being a useful product.)
This is because that seems like the most similar existing piece of work I’m aware of (in methodology rather than topic). And to me it seems like that project was probably worthwhile, including the parameter estimates, and that it provided outputs that are perhaps more useful and less massively uncertain than I would’ve predicted. And that seems like weak evidence that parameter estimates could be worthwhile in this case as well.