Here are my notes from the Optimal Philanthropy online meeting. Things in square brackets are my later additions and corrections. Let me know if there are factual errors or if I've incorrectly captured the drift of what you were saying.

Nick:

existential risk argument goes as follows:
- small chance that people will be around for a really long time
- if so, increasing probability of that happening by a small amount then really good
- therefore, you should focus on this rather than things that have short-run impacts
- focus only on things that reduce xrisk
Similar property: make things a little bit better for a really long time. Might be easier to do that.
- name for these: trajectory change. Different from just economic growth – changes default trajectory along which things go
- interesting for same reason as xrisk reduction but people haven’t talked much about them.

[sorry, didn’t note who said this]: education as an example. Particular kind of education?

Nick:

not really thought through this idea yet. [This idea is at the same stage] as if you’d just stumbled across xrisk concept
another example is just changing people’s values for a better
- ordinary – e.g. campaigning for particular political party

Scott:

calls this “static” [I assume this means as in “noise” rather than as in “stationary”]
I’m doing something – tends to break down after a month or so, very difficult to predict long term results
should focus on things that can be predicted, build better models

Nick:

things that look short run could have long run impacts
e.g. thinking of buying bednets for people as having short-term impact – has short run impact today, no impact in 100 years time
but if you think about all downstream consequences, actually making small impact

Scott agrees.

both good and bad long-term consequences included in static
it’s a wash

Jeff:

what makes you think bednets have good long term consequences?
currently thinks of bednet as short term good, long term wash
benefits of having more people, having more healthy kids?
really hard to predict long term value

Nick:

Four classes of thing
- things that reduce xrisk
- things that speed up progress
- things that make trajectory change
- only short run effect
bednet not a trajectory change.
buying bednet increases economic growth &nda

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Online Optimal Philanthropy Meetup: Tue 10/9, 8pm ET

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