Woman // Christian // Canadian // Londoner // Married // Donates to Global Development // Works on Energy Policy
Khorton
Karma: 3,475
Ah sorry, I had heard about the competition from others, heard the quality of writing varied significantly, and so assumed that it wasn’t really a study. My bad!
I would suggest editing the title to “contest results” because this isn’t testing a theory with controls in the way a “study” would, but I am known for being a bit of a pedant.
Yep, I’d be on board with providing specific people with funding to work on whatever projects they find most valuable. But I’d only be likely to provide that to ~10 people and see what happens, as opposed to what I felt this article was suggesting.
Yeah, I really dislike that I can’t delete comments.
Yes, to be clear, I’m arguing that we should have a robust funding ecosystem. I am opposed to “UBI for EAs”
That’s a good point. What kind of strategies do you think we should adopt?
I agree. And I think “willing to support” should normally include enough money for a bit of savings, both for an emergency fund and your pension.
I would not contribute to insurance for the average EA. I would prefer for the average EA to save a bit of money (“runway”) in advance of making a risky decision.
In particular, I have seen quite a few EAs who have decided not take on any paid work for 1+ years after university and I don’t want to financially support them unless they’re doing something genuinely impactful, in which case I’d give them a grant.
In summary, I’d need a compelling reason to donate my money to middle class people in high income countries instead of literally saving lives, and I haven’t seen one yet.
Challenge trials face resistance for very valid historical reasons—this podcast has a good summary. https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/marc-lipsitch-winning-or-losing-against-covid19-and-epidemiology/
I was listening to the 80,000 Hours podcast today and heard Ben Todd say, “The issue is [longtermism is] a new idea.”
I’ve seen this view around EA a few times. It might be true about a certain narrow form of longtermism. It’s NOT true of longtermism broadly.
The first time I was introduced to long-termist ideas was in a university Native Studies class, discussing the traditional teaching that the current generation should focus on the well-being of seven generations in the future.
I read it as “careers in physical goods”
Great!
Can I opt out of Forum favourites? I’m sorry but I hate it
Can I get email updates about a specific tag?
There’s a weird incentive, right? Because even if I thought the new product was good, I’m now basically getting paid not to switch to it?
(I tried Roam for a few weeks and wasn’t that into it, so I would’ve definitely gotten money from you!)
Why would you learn Mandarin if you’re disinterested in China? What made it high scoring?
Yes, I definitely think it’s useful to draw a distinction between reducing demand for the product or service vs making the product or service more efficient.
I’ve seen some interventions to reduce waste—I’m not sure which category you’d put that in. I think providing free smart meters is a nudge in this category. https://www.smartenergygb.org/en/about-smart-meters
I’ve seen a lot of work on demand side response, whether that’s reducing demand or just shifting it in order to reduce peaks in consumption. For example, the International Energy Agency tracks it annually.
https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-energy-integration-2019/demand-response
I down voted this because it seems uncooperative with the rest of humanity. The general vibe of the summary seems to be “let people suffer so they’ll learn their lesson.” If that’s not what you meant, though, I’m interested to hear what you actually think.
Edit: I appreciate the updated title!
It’s worth noting that epidemiologists can do modelling of disease given particular assumptions or policy choices, but they do not make a career out of predicting policies, which is a lot of what this question is about.