Yeah, I think Tyler Cowen offers an argument roughly along these lines in his book *Stubborn Attachments*.
One thing worth flagging is that (2) invokes an overly narrow conception of "effective charity". Longtermists, for example, are explicitly trying to find ways to do more long-term good. So the key question is just whether they're abl…
Yeah, I think Tyler Cowen offers an argument roughly along these lines in his book *Stubborn Attachments*.
One thing worth flagging is that (2) invokes an overly narrow conception of "effective charity". Longtermists, for example, are explicitly trying to find ways to do more long-term good. So the key question is just whether they're able to find anything that is better in expectation than completely undirected investment. On its face, it would be a surprising coincidence if optimizing for near-term market returns also happened to be morally optimal for long-term welfare impact. Plausibly-better options include (i) existential risk reduction, (ii) investment specifically in basic science / R&D, (iii) targeted investment in vaccine development, pandemic prevention, etc., and (iv) investment in (e.g. lab grown) meat alternatives in hopes of eventually replacing the horrific factory farming system.
Yeah, I think Tyler Cowen offers an argument roughly along these lines in his book *Stubborn Attachments*.
One thing worth flagging is that (2) invokes an overly narrow conception of "effective charity". Longtermists, for example, are explicitly trying to find ways to do more long-term good. So the key question is just whether they're able to find anything that is better in expectation than completely undirected investment. On its face, it would be a surprising coincidence if optimizing for near-term market returns also happened to be morally optimal for long-term welfare impact. Plausibly-better options include (i) existential risk reduction, (ii) investment specifically in basic science / R&D, (iii) targeted investment in vaccine development, pandemic prevention, etc., and (iv) investment in (e.g. lab grown) meat alternatives in hopes of eventually replacing the horrific factory farming system.