I agree it would surprise if EA happened upon the optimal cohabitation level (although perhaps not that surprising, given individuals can act by the lights of their best interest which may reasonably approximate the global optimum), yet I maintain the charitable intervention hypothetical is a poor intuition pump as most people would be dissuaded from ‘intervening’ to push towards the ‘optimal cohabitation level’ for ‘in practice’ reasons—e.g. much larger potential side-effects of trying to twiddle this dial, preserving the norm of leaving people to manage their personal lives as they see best, etc.
I’d probably want to suggest the optimal cohabitation level is below what we currently observe (e.g. besides the issue Khorton mentions, cohabitation with your employees/​bosses/​colleagues or funder/​fundee seems to run predictable risks), yet be reluctant to ‘intervene’ any further up the coercion hierarchy than expressing my reasons for caution.
I agree it would surprise if EA happened upon the optimal cohabitation level (although perhaps not that surprising, given individuals can act by the lights of their best interest which may reasonably approximate the global optimum), yet I maintain the charitable intervention hypothetical is a poor intuition pump as most people would be dissuaded from ‘intervening’ to push towards the ‘optimal cohabitation level’ for ‘in practice’ reasons—e.g. much larger potential side-effects of trying to twiddle this dial, preserving the norm of leaving people to manage their personal lives as they see best, etc.
I’d probably want to suggest the optimal cohabitation level is below what we currently observe (e.g. besides the issue Khorton mentions, cohabitation with your employees/​bosses/​colleagues or funder/​fundee seems to run predictable risks), yet be reluctant to ‘intervene’ any further up the coercion hierarchy than expressing my reasons for caution.