I upvoted this post. My best guess is you’re wrong, but I think this post is heartfelt and if my cause prioritization is still global health, I’d probably make a very serious effort in figuring out whether doing this is a good idea and why.
I think it is rare to find (apparent) huge altruistic opportunities that are morally unambiguous under most reasonable axiologies and a relatively small number of dedicated actors can do.
I think EA folks probably has too high willingness to play nice with existing powers and status quo bias. I think there are sometimes good reasons for this, but I think I personally have a lot of emotional sympathy for simpler arguments like “You are going to let hundreds of thousands of children die every year because of decorum and politeness and willingness to casually stand by and let f-cked up governments and NGOs keep on f-cking up? What the hell is wrong with you?”
My best guess is that on reflection I’d endorse working slowly with the existing powers that be, for reasons like Ben Stewart mentioned (most importantly you’d probably fail and potentially poison the well for future gene drive efforts). But I think I want to have a culture where this type of thing is debated more actively, and status quo bias isn’t just assumed to be correct.
(An important reason I could be wrong is that I’m not plugged into the space. I can imagine that people seriously thought hard about unilateral gene drive releases and carefully concluded that the costs aren’t worth it).
I upvoted this post. My best guess is you’re wrong, but I think this post is heartfelt and if my cause prioritization is still global health, I’d probably make a very serious effort in figuring out whether doing this is a good idea and why.
I think it is rare to find (apparent) huge altruistic opportunities that are morally unambiguous under most reasonable axiologies and a relatively small number of dedicated actors can do.
I think EA folks probably has too high willingness to play nice with existing powers and status quo bias. I think there are sometimes good reasons for this, but I think I personally have a lot of emotional sympathy for simpler arguments like “You are going to let hundreds of thousands of children die every year because of decorum and politeness and willingness to casually stand by and let f-cked up governments and NGOs keep on f-cking up? What the hell is wrong with you?”
My best guess is that on reflection I’d endorse working slowly with the existing powers that be, for reasons like Ben Stewart mentioned (most importantly you’d probably fail and potentially poison the well for future gene drive efforts). But I think I want to have a culture where this type of thing is debated more actively, and status quo bias isn’t just assumed to be correct.
(An important reason I could be wrong is that I’m not plugged into the space. I can imagine that people seriously thought hard about unilateral gene drive releases and carefully concluded that the costs aren’t worth it).