it’s impossible to compare interventions that alleviate extreme poverty to those that preserve rare cave fungi?
Honestly I don’t think this one is as good an argument as a lot of EA folks thinks. Even in cases when it is possible to compare—EA approach to be “as cost effective as possible” drives it to “monoculture” approach. If one thing gives the biggest benefit for the $ spent—every other should be abandoned, because any $ spent on them is not spent on the most cost effective thing!
Monocultures have a lot of downsides too. Ask bananas.
Also funny to see this discussed right after the section about blandness and averaging out anything distinct.
Honestly I don’t think this one is as good an argument as a lot of EA folks thinks. Even in cases when it is possible to compare—EA approach to be “as cost effective as possible” drives it to “monoculture” approach. If one thing gives the biggest benefit for the $ spent—every other should be abandoned, because any $ spent on them is not spent on the most cost effective thing!
Monocultures have a lot of downsides too. Ask bananas.
Also funny to see this discussed right after the section about blandness and averaging out anything distinct.