Aaron Gertler 🔸 comments on Existential Risk and Economic Growth

[Aaron Gertler 🔸]

This post was awarded an EA Forum Prize; see the prize announcement for more details.

My notes on what I liked about the post, from the announcement:

While Leopold’s paper was written away from the Forum, his taking the time to publish it and ask for feedback made him eligible for the Prize; it was also good to see his detailed replies to questions from other users.

Meanwhile, the paper itself is well-formatted (in the standard style of many economics papers) and seems easy to follow. I’d expect an economist, or someone else familiar with the field’s mathematical background, to be able to track Leopold’s points and, if they disagree with anything, to be able to pin down where his argument goes awry.

Note: Since the Prize committee won’t always have domain expertise for posts on technical topics, we generally care more about structure, organization, and clarity than whether we think an author’s conclusion is correct. A really good Forum post is one that explains itself point-by-point, such that critics and supporters alike can engage more effectively with the author.