Principles of effective altruism counsel paying close attention to the evidence, to find the most cost-effective opportunities to do good. But evidence covers only the more immediate effects of any intervention, and it’s highly likely the vast majority of the value is thereby omitted from the calculation. In this EA Student Summit 2020 talk, Hilary discusses the range of possible responses to this fact, and in particular whether it supports or instead undermines “longtermism”.
In the future, we may post a transcript for this talk, but we haven’t created one yet. If you’d like to create a transcript for this talk, contact Aaron Gertler — he can help you get started.
A full transcript of this talk exists at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LdZcit8zX89rofZf3/evidence-cluelessness-and-the-long-term-hilary-greaves