Regarding one’s ability to effect social change: It seems like the standard arguments about small-probability, high-impact paths apply. I think a lot of STEM types tend to default to shy away from policy change, not because of comparative advantage (which would often be a good reason) but because of some blind spot in the way technologists talk about how to get things done in society. I think for historical reasons (the way the rationality community has grown) we tend to be biased towards technical solutions and away from policy ones.
I definitely agree that there is a bias in this community for technological solutions over policy solutions. However, I don’t think that this bias is the deciding factor for judging ‘trying to induce policy solutions on climate change’ to not be cost-effective. You (and others) already said it best: climate change is far more widely recognised than other topics, with a lot of people already contributing. This topic is quite heavily politicized, and it is very difficult to distinguish “I think this policy would, despite the high costs, be a great benefit to humanity as a whole” from “Go go climate change team! This is a serious issue! Look at me being serious!”.
Which reminds me: I think the standard counter-argument to applying the “low probability, high impact” argument to political situations applies: how can you be sure that you’re backing the right side, or that your call to action won’t be met with an equal call to opposite action by your political opponents? I’m not that eager to have an in-depth discussion on this in the comments here (especially since we don’t actually have a policy proposal or a method to implement it), but one of the main reasons I am hesitant about policy proposals is the significant chance for large negative externalities, and the strong motivation of the proposers to downplay those.
Emiya said cost-effectiveness will be treated extensively, and I am extremely eager to read the full post. As I said above, if there is a cost-effective way for me to combat climate change this would jump to (near) the top of my priorities instantly.
Regarding one’s ability to effect social change: It seems like the standard arguments about small-probability, high-impact paths apply. I think a lot of STEM types tend to default to shy away from policy change, not because of comparative advantage (which would often be a good reason) but because of some blind spot in the way technologists talk about how to get things done in society. I think for historical reasons (the way the rationality community has grown) we tend to be biased towards technical solutions and away from policy ones.
I definitely agree that there is a bias in this community for technological solutions over policy solutions. However, I don’t think that this bias is the deciding factor for judging ‘trying to induce policy solutions on climate change’ to not be cost-effective. You (and others) already said it best: climate change is far more widely recognised than other topics, with a lot of people already contributing. This topic is quite heavily politicized, and it is very difficult to distinguish “I think this policy would, despite the high costs, be a great benefit to humanity as a whole” from “Go go climate change team! This is a serious issue! Look at me being serious!”.
Which reminds me: I think the standard counter-argument to applying the “low probability, high impact” argument to political situations applies: how can you be sure that you’re backing the right side, or that your call to action won’t be met with an equal call to opposite action by your political opponents? I’m not that eager to have an in-depth discussion on this in the comments here (especially since we don’t actually have a policy proposal or a method to implement it), but one of the main reasons I am hesitant about policy proposals is the significant chance for large negative externalities, and the strong motivation of the proposers to downplay those.
Emiya said cost-effectiveness will be treated extensively, and I am extremely eager to read the full post. As I said above, if there is a cost-effective way for me to combat climate change this would jump to (near) the top of my priorities instantly.