Thanks for your work and thanks for doing this!
In your interview with Patrick Collison, he says the following:
“I think of EA as sort of like a metal detector, and they’ve invented a new kind of metal detector that’s really good at detecting some metals that other detectors are not very good at detecting. But I actually think we need some diversity in the different metallic substances which our detectors are attuned to, and for me EA would not be the only one”
Discussion on the EA forum here, link to the interview here.
First, do you broadly agree with that framework?
Second, given that you likely think that progress studies is one of the most important things to work on, do you think it should worry us that the EA detector did not on its own seem to pick up on progress studies as an opportunity to do good, before it became a more mainstream view? Why didn’t EAs launch this field years ago? Why isn’t it one of the main EA cause areas? Does this hint at a way our detector may be broken? (Note to say that personally I am agnostic for now as to whether this should be a main EA cause area.)
Third, how can we tune the EA metal detector to be more effective at finding new niches where there’s room to do good effectively? I think Patrick is probably right that the EA detector isn’t good enough to pick up on everything that you would want to pick up on. But unlike other detectors, we do have the explicit goal to find all the most important things to do at the margin. So how can we get closer to that goal?
Hello, I think you make a good point, about the necessity to carefully weigh the up- and downsides of each system.
I do not have a strong view on which alternative voting system is best, since I haven’t looked into it deeply enough. Still I want to address this proposition:
I mostly agree with this position, especially in scenarios where no other option is realistically on the table. However, I do want to point out, that adopting a sub-optimal system can have a considerable cost and that it is not entirely obvious that this cost is irrelevant relative to the gains obtained from switching away from the status quo; in particular, if one believes that the difference in outcomes between two alternative voting systems is big.
For instance, one might assume alternative voting system B to lead to much better results than system A. If this were the case, then switching to A (the weaker system), though (probably) better than the status quo in itself, could still lead to outcomes that are worse than if the switch had not happened. This is for 2 main reasons:
First, as Tobias points out, countries do not change their voting system frequently. Hence this sub-optimal system A might potentially stick around for a century to come, before maybe being changed to the better alternative B. It might be preferable to postpone the switch by a few years, hopefully increasing the odds of switching to B instead of A.
Secondly, this new system A will inevitably be questioned by the electorate and the media. If system A then yields controversial results that are not obviously better than the results one would have got with the status quo system, the whole switch might be viewed as a mistake by the general population. This might even lead to less trust in the political system, though probably only in the short run. Still, a negative experience of this kind, may not only have short-term bad consequences for the country itself in the form of further erosion of trust, but could also discourage other countries from switching away from their respective status quo system for years to come.
Of course, I’m not arguing that switching should be postponed until absolute certainty of one system being better than all others is reached. (That point will probably never come.)
And, of course, I also acknowledge, that the opposite of the described scenario might happen, i.e. that one country switching might encourage others to do so, rather than discourage.
All I’m saying is that there is a case against switching and that therefore, not any system that seems preferable to the status quo ought to automatically be endorsed.