Wow. This post perfectly clarifies a major issue I have had with where EA is right now. I had not been able to articulate it though.
Just taking the turn to longtermism, it so obviously undermines the core tenet of EA which is “effective”. At best the longtermists are correct, but the amount of uncertainty in the bet is so high that it’s hard to defend with a straight face. So you go from a strategy of funding 95%+/-5% effective charities to one that funds charities that are 70%+/-30% effective, hoping that you stay above 50% for a *massive* number of people.
Likewise with your hole digging thought experiment. Your going from an idea where you take your existing money and put it into a remedy that is highly effective to a world where the remedy is still highly effective(95%), but you also create new money that itself is 30% damaged, so overall the effectiveness is now much lower than 95%.
In retrospect this comment is just restating your post, but it was really helpful to me. There are a couple other flaws with EA to me, but this was really eye-opening.
It's a long quote but he's intentionally signaling that we need humility -- "What I want to avoid is to ... super-confidentially postulate what is the best form for civilization a billion years from now". Essentially, arguing against the idea that we can, with any confidence, project the future and its ideal form in the future.
Wow. This post perfectly clarifies a major issue I have had with where EA is right now. I had not been able to articulate it though.
Just taking the turn to longtermism, it so obviously undermines the core tenet of EA which is “effective”. At best the longtermists are correct, but the amount of uncertainty in the bet is so high that it’s hard to defend with a straight face. So you go from a strategy of funding 95%+/-5% effective charities to one that funds charities that are 70%+/-30% effective, hoping that you stay above 50% for a *massive* number of people.
Likewise with your hole digging thought experiment. Your going from an idea where you take your existing money and put it into a remedy that is highly effective to a world where the remedy is still highly effective(95%), but you also create new money that itself is 30% damaged, so overall the effectiveness is now much lower than 95%.
In retrospect this comment is just restating your post, but it was really helpful to me. There are a couple other flaws with EA to me, but this was really eye-opening.
Doesn't the final quote from Bostrom support efforts to ensure survival?
It's a long quote but he's intentionally signaling that we need humility -- "What I want to avoid is to ... super-confidentially postulate what is the best form for civilization a billion years from now". Essentially, arguing against the idea that we can, with any confidence, project the future and its ideal form in the future.