I think I feel a bit confused with the concept of it being crucial to “stack a bunch of multipliers.”
Like how would you describe this story:
A student is planning a career working on US economic policy (because this is something he’s had an interest in for a little while). Then, he is exposed to some ideas in longtermism and decides to instead work on AI policy instead (because he thinks it seems like a big deal and is probably more important than economic policy).
This feels to me like it’s just “one step” or “one multiplier” that puts this student on a much higher EV career path.
Thanks for this!
First came across a similar argument in Joe Carlsmith’s series on expected utility (this section in particular). The rest of that essay has some other interesting arguments, though the one you’ve highlighted here is the part I’ve generally found myself remembering and coming back to most.