Well, so much for that !

Comme le titre l'indique, ce roman cherche à être rationnel.

Yes, it's used to make the Elixir of Life.

I read this trying to keep as open a mind as possible, and I think there is SOME value to SOME of what he said (ie no two experiments are totally the same and replicators often are motivated to prove the first study wrong)... But one thing that really set me off is that he genuinely considers a study that doesn't prove its hypothesis as a failure, not even acknowledging that IN PRINCIPLE, this study has proven the hypothesis wrong, which is valuable knowledge all the same.

Which is so jarring with what I consider the very basis of science that I find difficult to take Mitchell seriously.

But things ARE moving in this direction, I believe. Bolivia is trying to figure a way to start getting money from the world's largest reserve of lithium, currently untouched because under the natural wonder Salar de Uyuni

Correlation is not causation. Who you are defines your friends probably as much as your friends define who you are, AND both are mainly consequences of something different entirely (which schol you went too, etc...)

In canon, Apparition becomes unreliable across long distances (as in, very few people could reliably travel to another country by Apparating, and even less (no one ?) to another continent). If this is true in HPMoR universe, then Apparate to the Pioneer plaque is out of question.

I'm not sure if you were answering my comment or wubbles's one. What I was saying was that you need to take into account the negative impact your job and way of life have on the world.

I agree that the US government probably is terrible at using tax money to better the world.

Well, I may have read too much into this statement, that's true. I always assumed that Dumbledore conveniently "going to the Ministry of Magic" on a broomstick or with a Thestral (and not using one of the million other possibilities such as Floo Powder, Portkey, Apparating), then SUDDENLY realizing halfway that Hogwarts is where he ought to be were meant to signify the adult reader that, unlike what Canon!HP understood, Dumbledore knew all along and was trying to trick Voldemort/Quirrel into trying to get the Stone (which was safe inside the mirror of Erised). It also explained the perfect timing of Hagrid and Harry retrieving the Stone from Gringotts the exact same day Quirrel/Voldemort broke in. The Stone had in my opinion been a bait all along, to try and catch the Dark Lord while waiting for the Chosen One to be old enough to defeat him.

THIS. Although I`m unsure about the particulars you mention here, being an European, people and effective altruists need to realize that your job is INSIDE the world you live in. Estimating how much good you're producing is not just about how much money/time you're giving to effective charities, but also how much your way of life is helping/damaging the world.