What is your argument for doing things that look good across all domains?
I think the rough argument would be
EA is likely to start focusing on new cause areas. EA has a significant amounts of money (£bn) and is unsure (especially for longtermists) how best to spend it and one of the key ways of finding more places to give is to explore new cause areas. Also many EAs think we will likely move to new/adjacent cause areas (source). Also EA has underinvested in cause research (link).
Cause areas that look promising for both neartermists and longtermists are a good bet. They are likely to have the things that neartermists filter for (e.g. quality of evidence) and that longtermists filter for (e.g. potential to leverage large impact in the long-run). And at minimum we should not dismiss them because we view the convergence as “surprising and suspicious”.
Point 10 then seems to undermine the general point you’re trying to make about convergence.
Yes to some degree the different arguments here might undermine each other. I just listed the 10 most plausible arguments I could think off. I made no effort to make sure they didn’t contradict one another (although I think contradictions are minimal).
If you want to reconcile Point 10 with the general narrative you could say something like: As a community we should do at least some of both. So for an individual with a specific skill set the relevant question would be personal strength and choosing the cause she/he can have the most impact on (rather than longtermism or not). To be honest I am not sure I 100% agree with that but it might help a bit.
I think the rough argument would be
EA is likely to start focusing on new cause areas. EA has a significant amounts of money (£bn) and is unsure (especially for longtermists) how best to spend it and one of the key ways of finding more places to give is to explore new cause areas. Also many EAs think we will likely move to new/adjacent cause areas (source). Also EA has underinvested in cause research (link).
Cause areas that look promising for both neartermists and longtermists are a good bet. They are likely to have the things that neartermists filter for (e.g. quality of evidence) and that longtermists filter for (e.g. potential to leverage large impact in the long-run). And at minimum we should not dismiss them because we view the convergence as “surprising and suspicious”.
Yes to some degree the different arguments here might undermine each other. I just listed the 10 most plausible arguments I could think off. I made no effort to make sure they didn’t contradict one another (although I think contradictions are minimal).
If you want to reconcile Point 10 with the general narrative you could say something like: As a community we should do at least some of both. So for an individual with a specific skill set the relevant question would be personal strength and choosing the cause she/he can have the most impact on (rather than longtermism or not). To be honest I am not sure I 100% agree with that but it might help a bit.