I mean, I think abundance and growth has much better arguments for improving long-run well-being cost-effectively than reducing global disease burden. I do think it gets messy because of technological risks, but if you bracket that (which is course is a very risky thing to do), this seems like a good reallocation of funds to me that seems closer to reasonable to me.
I’m very confused about how they’re evaluating cost-effectiveness here. Like, no, spending $200 on vaccines in Africa to save lives seems like a much better deal than spending $200 to cause one more $400k apartment to exist.
Do you mean “they” or “me”? I think the latter is very likely better in the long run! Like, the places where $400k apartments exist have enormous positive externalities and enormous per-capita productivity, which is the central driver of technological growth, which is definitely going to determine long-run disease burden and happiness and population levels. The argument here feels pretty straightforward. We can try to put numbers on it, if you want, but if you accept the basic premise it’s kind of hard for the numbers to come out in favor of vaccines.
I mean, I think abundance and growth has much better arguments for improving long-run well-being cost-effectively than reducing global disease burden. I do think it gets messy because of technological risks, but if you bracket that (which is course is a very risky thing to do), this seems like a good reallocation of funds to me that seems closer to reasonable to me.
I’m very confused about how they’re evaluating cost-effectiveness here. Like, no, spending $200 on vaccines in Africa to save lives seems like a much better deal than spending $200 to cause one more $400k apartment to exist.
Do you mean “they” or “me”? I think the latter is very likely better in the long run! Like, the places where $400k apartments exist have enormous positive externalities and enormous per-capita productivity, which is the central driver of technological growth, which is definitely going to determine long-run disease burden and happiness and population levels. The argument here feels pretty straightforward. We can try to put numbers on it, if you want, but if you accept the basic premise it’s kind of hard for the numbers to come out in favor of vaccines.