There were also points I agree and disagree with after reading the post and the comment session. EAs tendency to quantify things and run BOTECs are probably the reason this post did not receive its deserved attention. WIth some footnotes and cavaets to this can better express the author’s opinion.
While I generally agree with the comments made by aogara and timunderwood. I have to highlight my agreement with Deborah of “Do no harm” oath, however, I would frame it as a ratio of “Doing loads of good/Doing minimal harm”, as the cases in the comments that some externalities maybe unavoidable let alone, LCA might also have blind-spots in identifying all the non-obvious externalities. But the missing “Doing loads of good/Doing minimal harm” is often missing as an epistemic status in EA thinking in favour of quick and brash utilitarianism BOTEC calculation instead of exploring the complexities as explored by Doing EA Better.
I thought the marginal damage of bednets chemically leaking is dangerous and contributes to the extinction event is probably under-assessed, although I have no expertise in commenting on chemical contamination. [Epistemic status: low]. One could potentially argue that this is an intermediate solution before the arrival of the Malaria vaccine, which on 2023 update is coming soon, then I suspect that AMF efforts is justifiable despite the environmental externalities. However, in light of this, I hope this is true and therefore will actually redirect most of AMF funding to rapidly speed-up and accelerate the vaccine trials and distribution like we had in COVID. This could be done to minimise the AMF externaliites. In a general scope, we wish near-termist charities to eventually disappear because this is a sign of a progressing human civilisation. We want less charities not more, more charities is an indication of problems becoming bigger.
I initially thought that the point on insect pesticide resilient was a good point and probably the most dangerous scenario until I considered Guy point, the number of mosquito in contact with the bednet in comparison to spraying is fair.
I also think that climate change as not part of the x-risk funding scheme is although epistemically mistaken, however due to less-neglectedness aspect, I can see why this was the case.
One contradiction in the movement when considering longtermism (I work on nuclear risks X AI) is that we use future humans as part of the moral justification on a flourishing future, yet we do not account for them suffering-risks and future living organisms in the 6th mass extinction. Yes, nature hangs in the balance and that if you ever visited a tropical forest, it is a constant life and death battle, but surely the shear number of species drop and their potential offsprings up to an equilibrium balance has not been seen in our past BOTEC calculations. While we only account them when we talk about near-termism risk in animal farming. I thought this might be misguided and more in-depth evaluation shall be done here.
Sorry for being 2 years late to the discussion.
There were also points I agree and disagree with after reading the post and the comment session. EAs tendency to quantify things and run BOTECs are probably the reason this post did not receive its deserved attention. WIth some footnotes and cavaets to this can better express the author’s opinion.
While I generally agree with the comments made by aogara and timunderwood. I have to highlight my agreement with Deborah of “Do no harm” oath, however, I would frame it as a ratio of “Doing loads of good/Doing minimal harm”, as the cases in the comments that some externalities maybe unavoidable let alone, LCA might also have blind-spots in identifying all the non-obvious externalities. But the missing “Doing loads of good/Doing minimal harm” is often missing as an epistemic status in EA thinking in favour of quick and brash utilitarianism BOTEC calculation instead of exploring the complexities as explored by Doing EA Better.
I thought the marginal damage of bednets chemically leaking is dangerous and contributes to the extinction event is probably under-assessed, although I have no expertise in commenting on chemical contamination. [Epistemic status: low]. One could potentially argue that this is an intermediate solution before the arrival of the Malaria vaccine, which on 2023 update is coming soon, then I suspect that AMF efforts is justifiable despite the environmental externalities. However, in light of this, I hope this is true and therefore will actually redirect most of AMF funding to rapidly speed-up and accelerate the vaccine trials and distribution like we had in COVID. This could be done to minimise the AMF externaliites. In a general scope, we wish near-termist charities to eventually disappear because this is a sign of a progressing human civilisation. We want less charities not more, more charities is an indication of problems becoming bigger.
I initially thought that the point on insect pesticide resilient was a good point and probably the most dangerous scenario until I considered Guy point, the number of mosquito in contact with the bednet in comparison to spraying is fair.
I also think that climate change as not part of the x-risk funding scheme is although epistemically mistaken, however due to less-neglectedness aspect, I can see why this was the case.
One contradiction in the movement when considering longtermism (I work on nuclear risks X AI) is that we use future humans as part of the moral justification on a flourishing future, yet we do not account for them suffering-risks and future living organisms in the 6th mass extinction. Yes, nature hangs in the balance and that if you ever visited a tropical forest, it is a constant life and death battle, but surely the shear number of species drop and their potential offsprings up to an equilibrium balance has not been seen in our past BOTEC calculations. While we only account them when we talk about near-termism risk in animal farming. I thought this might be misguided and more in-depth evaluation shall be done here.