Director of Research at CEARCH: https://exploratory-altruism.org/
I construct cost-effectiveness analyses of various cause areas, identifying the most promising opportunities for impactful work.
Previously a teacher in London, UK.
Director of Research at CEARCH: https://exploratory-altruism.org/
I construct cost-effectiveness analyses of various cause areas, identifying the most promising opportunities for impactful work.
Previously a teacher in London, UK.
Longtermist work is suspiciously comfortable
Much Longtermist work is clean, abstract and suspiciously well-suited to your typical EA. Could this be clouding our judgement?
One surprising thing about bednet-era EA was the disconnect between EAs and the kind of work they were championing. Oxbridge-grad MacAskill implored us to donate to malaria charities, or even to help fix global poverty directly. I actually found this reassuring—nerdy philosophy types probably don’t inherently love thinking about Sub-Saharan supply chains, so the fact they do it anyway was a sign that perhaps their reasoning really was impartial.
Contrast this with Longtermism. Longtermist work is generally more theoretical and less messy. It can be conducted on a laptop with a flat white and a Huel on hand. Longtermists don’t need to make networks in developing countries. In many cases, they don’t even need to prove that their work is making a difference.
All of the above differences make Longtermist work more appealing to a typical Western, university-educated person.
“So what?” I hear you say, “we’re rational and are pursuing Longtermism because it is so impactful”.
Perhaps. But we should be wary. We know how prone we are to post-rationalising our decisions. We should be careful to separate the worthiness of Longtermist work from the appeal of Longtermist roles.
I am not questioning the validity of Longtermism. I merely think that we should be aware of the likely bias we have towards it.
We are allowed to be swayed by good working conditions or better wages. The danger is that the comforts of the job stop us asking difficult questions about Longtermism.
Tonight, on the 80,000 Hours job page, as my cursor glides past the $1,000/month manager roles in Nairobi and hovers over the $100,000/year AI job in Silicon Valley, I will try to remember this.
I think you could build a very compelling case for this. Even if official data sources do underestimate key numbers like overdose deaths, they are still a stirring call to action.
Drug problems have got considerably worse in the past decade. This CDC source implies that overdose rates have more than doubled since 2015. Much of the increase came during the pandemic, which could add a little narrative spice to your argument.
2. Other “similar” problems are not getting worse. Other “despair” indicators like suicide and depression appear to be stable. Road accidents and violence have fallen. On one hand it’s a bit sneaky to pick and choose comparisons like this, but it could be argued that they are all societal problems that often cause (very) early death. They’re tragic.
3. Vaccines/ other pharma interventions may offer an unusually tractable and scalable solution. Addiction and all of the other problems in the chart above are very difficult problems to fight. At best, interventions usually take a chunk out of the burden but offer no hope of big change. Drug interventions can be controversial, with effects of uncertain sign. If you can show that your ideas are significantly better, you are doing well.
I expect that a major difficulty is that your solutions involve developing new vaccines/drugs, which is of course an expensive, unknown and long process. Will pharma companies see potential for a profit? Is there scientific grounding for optimism on these new drugs being possible?
Unfortunately I don’t have the spare capacity to volunteer much time. I’d be interested in giving feedback on any future work. Good luck!
I think you are right that we often forget the marginal nature of the contributions made in a highly-sought-after job. “Do I offer more than the next best candidate?” is a question we forget to ask.
I suspect the effectiveness of “nurses, child care workers, truck drivers, and home health aides”, while higher than a typical job, might pale in comparison to more targeted work like independent projects or effective giving. Someone donating 10% of the median US salary to effective causes can expect to save approximately one life per year—a high threshold indeed.
Thanks for sharing this! I would love to see similar transparency on pay decisions from other orgs, even if they don’t have such a formalised system.