Sometimes, this is not an option when making a decision. E.g., when advising a friend who received two job offers in animal welfare, neither of which decrease uncertainty; or when recommending grants for a fund (where none of the grants decrease uncertainty).
Even among roles whose major focus is not decreasing one of your major uncertainties, there could be some which decrease them significantly more than others. Roles which allow moving more funds (via personal donations or grants) or people (via career advice and recruitment) to projects decreasing the major uncertainties. Roles at organisations helping considerably different species instead of similar species. For example, a researcher at Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) has to prioritise between helping cows, pigs, chickens, fish, and invertebrates, at least implicitly (and explicitly in the context of ACEās charity evaluations). In contrast, a researcher at the Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI) overwhelmingly focuses on fish.
I think moral weights and pain trade-offs might be so seriously underdetermined that I expect that most research I could do or support right now would not reduce uncertainty about them. I expect youāll have a counter in that, though, and I expect my views to evolve.
Some advocacy and research could build capacity for decreasing the major uncertainties even if they do not directly decrease them.
In comparison, assessing 2nd-order effects of certain interventions (such as economic effects, and land use effects) is tractable, although difficult.
I agree.
I kind of rule out ālong-horizon thinkingā in my decision procedure on principle. Hence, if I expected pain tradeoff ratios to become a resolvable issue after 30 years of empirical research necessiating $50M of investment per year, I donāt think Iād want to seed it, because I think that the chance that this works is negligible (youāll likely object to this on decision-theoretic grounds, I assume).
I think the expected impact increases gradually with spending, and I would focus on the expected impact per $ instead of the increase in the probability of at least some level of success per $. Say spending 1.5 billion $ (= 50*10^6*30) over 30 years would make comparisons between pain intensities 100 % resolvable. I would expect cost-effectiveness to decreases with spending. So, for example, I would expect seed funding of 15 k$ to make comparisons between pain intensities much more than 0.001 % resolvable (= 15*10^3/ā(1.5*10^9)).
This is more uncomfortable to admit (and Iām particularly uncertain on that point), but if I were to focus almost entirely on research that decreases uncertainty, appearing as someone who recommends no object-level actions may be costly to me in a way that could reduce the change that my research is successful in decreasing uncertainty, because it could receive less support.
I agree fundraising for the research decreasing the major uncertainties will be easier if it informs funding decisions related to non-research interventions. At the same time, I expect some degree of specialisation to be useful. Some people could focus on the research decreasing the major uncertainties (for instance, Rethink Prioritiesā (RPās) worldview investigations team (WIT)), and others on funding decisions related to non-research interventions (like grantmakers).
Great points.
Even among roles whose major focus is not decreasing one of your major uncertainties, there could be some which decrease them significantly more than others. Roles which allow moving more funds (via personal donations or grants) or people (via career advice and recruitment) to projects decreasing the major uncertainties. Roles at organisations helping considerably different species instead of similar species. For example, a researcher at Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) has to prioritise between helping cows, pigs, chickens, fish, and invertebrates, at least implicitly (and explicitly in the context of ACEās charity evaluations). In contrast, a researcher at the Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI) overwhelmingly focuses on fish.
Some advocacy and research could build capacity for decreasing the major uncertainties even if they do not directly decrease them.
I agree.
I think the expected impact increases gradually with spending, and I would focus on the expected impact per $ instead of the increase in the probability of at least some level of success per $. Say spending 1.5 billion $ (= 50*10^6*30) over 30 years would make comparisons between pain intensities 100 % resolvable. I would expect cost-effectiveness to decreases with spending. So, for example, I would expect seed funding of 15 k$ to make comparisons between pain intensities much more than 0.001 % resolvable (= 15*10^3/ā(1.5*10^9)).
I agree fundraising for the research decreasing the major uncertainties will be easier if it informs funding decisions related to non-research interventions. At the same time, I expect some degree of specialisation to be useful. Some people could focus on the research decreasing the major uncertainties (for instance, Rethink Prioritiesā (RPās) worldview investigations team (WIT)), and others on funding decisions related to non-research interventions (like grantmakers).