I think often about the non-immediate future, and wonder how to best allocate effort to make that future better. And the first steps in this process are often to identify interesting classes of scenarios, and then estimate their desirability, chances, and ease of influence.
Hey Robin, I am an engineer involved in planning big long term infrastructure projects... And in my experience 'feasability' is a crucial question.. Not just can it be built (as in aligns with the laws of physics.. but also questions like:
- Will the community accept it, or chain themselves to bulldozers?
- What is the environmental impact?
- Can it be funded?
- Are there contractors/designers who know how to do it and are willing to do it?
- Is it insurable?
Very often a not as 'exciting' project goes ahead because it is more 'doable'..
1. The grand idea people are almost always wrong. Systemic small changes are what works.
2. The universe is transactional, and runs on marginal utility. In the exchange of resources for other resources, you must have a net positive otherwise the universe change is damaging.
You have to include the “founder market fit” in the odds of success. So if it’s you thinking about it, you should definitely think about all the futarchy angles.
It's like optimizing along the other dimension, like you were measuring, given that someone was going to make a great advance in philosophical area X, what are the odds that it would be Robin Hanson to do it? And what X is optimal for that? Maybe futarchy. That is not an argument for "allocating effort" per se but an argument for "allocating Robin Hanson effort".
A sufficiently desperate authoritarian government would have a crack at disallowing women in the workforce (by high gender-targeyed min wages), in higher education (by allowing only mothers of two to attend) as well as allowing a degree of legal polygamy. I reckon one or more of these would fix it.
Hey Robin, I am an engineer involved in planning big long term infrastructure projects... And in my experience 'feasability' is a crucial question.. Not just can it be built (as in aligns with the laws of physics.. but also questions like:
- Will the community accept it, or chain themselves to bulldozers?
- What is the environmental impact?
- Can it be funded?
- Are there contractors/designers who know how to do it and are willing to do it?
- Is it insurable?
Very often a not as 'exciting' project goes ahead because it is more 'doable'..
A long way of saying, I think you are right...
And I'm a long way from getting to those detailed feasibility issues; I'm just looking at very crude issues.
FELICES PRIORIZAR Y ROBIN HANSONROBIN
Decent piece
Couple of things to note:
1. The grand idea people are almost always wrong. Systemic small changes are what works.
2. The universe is transactional, and runs on marginal utility. In the exchange of resources for other resources, you must have a net positive otherwise the universe change is damaging.
So one can't usefully try to intentionally address big issues? Just ignore them you recomend?
Big issues are usually solved incrementally with sequential understanding of the variables involved and their interactions.
The hubris in approaching big issues with grand solutions is why they typically fail. This approach lacks sufficient analysis and feedback.
You have to include the “founder market fit” in the odds of success. So if it’s you thinking about it, you should definitely think about all the futarchy angles.
You lost me.
It's like optimizing along the other dimension, like you were measuring, given that someone was going to make a great advance in philosophical area X, what are the odds that it would be Robin Hanson to do it? And what X is optimal for that? Maybe futarchy. That is not an argument for "allocating effort" per se but an argument for "allocating Robin Hanson effort".
A sufficiently desperate authoritarian government would have a crack at disallowing women in the workforce (by high gender-targeyed min wages), in higher education (by allowing only mothers of two to attend) as well as allowing a degree of legal polygamy. I reckon one or more of these would fix it.