Consider the total amount sent toward the generalized cause of a randomly chosen charity with a budget of at least $500K/year. I.e., not the Local Village Center for the Blind but humanity’s total efforts to help the blind. Compare MIRI and FHI.
I agree that x-risk reduction is a lot less popular than, e.g., caring for the blind, but it doesn’t follow that people are strongly biased against caring about x-risk reduction. Note that x-risk reduction is a relatively new cause (because the issues didn’t become clear until relatively recently), whereas people have been caring for the blind for millennia. Under the circumstances, one would expect much more attention to go toward caring for the blind independently of whether people were biased against x-risk reduction specifically. I expect x-risk reduction to become more popular over time.
Consider the total amount sent toward the generalized cause of a randomly chosen charity with a budget of at least $500K/year. I.e., not the Local Village Center for the Blind but humanity’s total efforts to help the blind. Compare MIRI and FHI.
Agreed.
Search for ‘million donation’ on news.google.com, first two pages:
Kentucky college gets record $250 million gift
$20-million Walton donation will boost Teach for America in LA
NIH applauds $30 million donation from NFL
Emerson College gets $2 million donation
Jim Pattison makes $5 million donation for Royal Jubilee Hospital
Eric and Wendy Schmidt donate $15 million for Governors Island park
Every time I hear a dollar amount on the news, I cringe at realizing how pathetic spending on existential risks is by comparison.
I agree that x-risk reduction is a lot less popular than, e.g., caring for the blind, but it doesn’t follow that people are strongly biased against caring about x-risk reduction. Note that x-risk reduction is a relatively new cause (because the issues didn’t become clear until relatively recently), whereas people have been caring for the blind for millennia. Under the circumstances, one would expect much more attention to go toward caring for the blind independently of whether people were biased against x-risk reduction specifically. I expect x-risk reduction to become more popular over time.