I don’t think that the donors/investors should put all their resource on the climate change problem, or all on the malaria problem, or all on the malnutrition one.

A balanced “portfolio” is always best. On this I think all GWB (the Global Warming Believers, I mean) that have overcome their bias would agree, as would those of the anti-GWB that have overcome _their_ bias.

I think we have made excellent progress.We agree that if the cost/benefit analysis is correct, and they do not benefit from the extra funding you expect, then they will go for the options with the highest cost/benefit ratios.

The whole exchange with you has been helpful in clarifying several matters for me. Thanks very much.

Your description of class 2 seems close enough to real people to be usable.
I doubt they would ever overcome their biases – the most likely is that they get heavily involved in one type of project and focus narrowly on it (in fact, once they are heavily invested in one type of project, then the marginal difference they can do is probably higher by staying in that project rather than shifting).

But let’s imagine they overcome their biases (but not their values). They will be more open to private sector involvement in their projects – nothing earth shattering there. But now let’s assume they are open to cost benefit analysis, and overcome any confirmation bias. What will happen then?

Well, if your cost-benefit analysis is correct, they will shift their efforts to malnutrition and those other things. If my analysis is correct (that the effect of GW on the rich world means that much more money will be available to combat GW that malnutrition) then what happens gets more complicated. If they do not benefit from this extra funding (for instance, if they manage a fixed endowment), they will shift to malnutrition. If they benefit from the extra funding (they manage a GW charity or a research institute into alternative energy, for ex.) they will remain in GW.

But there are many other moral issues that cloud the whole picture – GW was caused by the rich nations, for example. So depending on what moral value people put on concepts like ‘historical responsibility’ (I put none at all, by the way – I refuse to feel ashamed or proud of my ancestors in any way) they may or may not change. There are other moral values, arguments and biases (some of which I share) that also advantage GW over other issues.

That’s engaging with it. What you should have said, if you are right, was that, “apart from XXX, he has not engaged with it.” However, having falsified your claim once, I am not particularly motivated to check your new claim – that he has done no more than make a claim regarding one particular disease and one particular city. I’m not your butler. I cleaned up after you once, but no more.

One of the greatest sentences ever written ^_^

I’ll respond substantively to your comments tomorrow. Though I do need to ask – the views you state about cost/benefits, are they the general consensus?

I think we are making progress. We now have 2 classes of believers

Class 1 is my guys, who have Availability, focusing, and confirmation/disconfirmation biases, so do not consider malnutrition, etc, but only warming.

Class 2 is your guys, who don’t have those biases, are not economists, think we can solve all the crises mentioned, if told there is not enough money they pledge to work to make sure there is, lack the idea of opportunity costs, give special emphasis to the poor in their values, and have the bias that ‘people with good intentions will help more than those without’.

Class 1 I claim will, when they overcome their availability focusing, and conf/disconf biases, see that there are other crises, see the others have higher cost/benefit ratios than warming and opt to do the other crises instead of warming.

Class 2 will (you tell me but I’ll guess now) work to make sure there is enough money to solve all the crises. If they succeed, then they will set off to solve all the crises. If they fail to get the money to solve all the crises, then they are back to having to prioritize. How do they prioritize? One way would be by cost/benefit ratios. Another way I guess you are suggesting is that they would ignore the cost/benefit ratios and prioitize by wealth of the recipient, i.e., by helping the poor more than the rich countries.

Is this the scenario you have in mind? Lets get this straight and then go on.

On another matter, I see from your last paragraph in your last comment that you were referring in your second comment to the next to last paragraph in my original post, which is good, and I would like to discuss that issue, of the other biases– overconfidence, loss aversion and illusion of control– with you separately from the above issue, from which it can be separated.

OTOH, the delegitimization of dissent is Powerful stuff, very dangerous, and the historical precedent for its use has been very poor. I have long believed that Popper’s basically bogus definition of science was intended primarily as a political weapon against all supposed sciences that aimed to delegitimze dissent and only secondarily as a crude epistemological tool for those who had previously possessed only even cruder epistemological tools. Historically, qualitative improvements in research program quality seem to have resulted from epistemological tools for delegitimizing arguments of specific and fairly easily verifiable forms, as in the categorization of logical fallacies. This works better if one is attacking specific arguments made by specific people than if one is attacking positions. However, it is ultimately necessary that arguers as well as arguments be vulnerable to attack for dishonesty, as otherwise dishonest arguers are prone to wasting people’s time by repeatedly making dishonest arguments for the same position. Academic credentials are one extremely crude way of doing this. Reputation markets could probably do the job MUCH better, as, for that matter, ordinary reputations already do within small circles.

And a pony.