Yes! This is helpful. I think one of the main places where I get caught up is taking expected value calculations very seriously even though they are wildly speculative; it seems like there is a very small chance that I might make a huge difference on an issue that ends up being absurdly important, and so it is hard to use my intuition on this kind of thing, whereas my intuitions very clearly help me with things that are close by and hence more easier to see I am doing some good but more difficult to make wild speculations that I might be having a hugely positive impact. So I guess part of the issue is to what degree I depend on these wildly speculative EV calculations, I feel like I really want to maximize impact, yet it is always a tenuous balancing act with so much uncertainty.
Yes! This is helpful. I think one of the main places where I get caught up is taking expected value calculations very seriously even though they are wildly speculative; it seems like there is a very small chance that I might make a huge difference on an issue that ends up being absurdly important, and so it is hard to use my intuition on this kind of thing, whereas my intuitions very clearly help me with things that are close by and hence more easier to see I am doing some good but more difficult to make wild speculations that I might be having a hugely positive impact. So I guess part of the issue is to what degree I depend on these wildly speculative EV calculations, I feel like I really want to maximize impact, yet it is always a tenuous balancing act with so much uncertainty.