In terms of “saving throws” one can buy for a humanity that may be navigating tricky situations in an unknown future, improvements to thinking skill seem to be one of the strongest and most robust.
Improvements to collective decision making seem to be potentially an even bigger win. I mean, voting reform; the kind of thing advocated by Electology. Disclaimer: I’m a board member.
Why do I think that? Individual human decisionmaking has already been optimized by evolution. Sure, that optimization doesn’t fit perfectly with a modern need for rationality, but it’s pretty darn good. However, democratic decisionmaking is basically still using the first system that anybody ever thought of, and monte carlo utility simulations show that we can probably make it at least twice as good (using a random dictator as a baseline).
On the other hand, achieving voting reform requires a critical mass, while individual rationality only requires individuals. And electology is not as far along in organizational growth as CFAR. But it seems to me that it’s a complementary idea, and that it would be reasonable for an effective altruist to diversify their “saving throw” contributions. (We would also welcome rationalist board members or volunteers.)
Improvements to collective decision making seem to be potentially an even bigger win. I mean, voting reform; the kind of thing advocated by Electology. Disclaimer: I’m a board member.
Disclaimer: I now support you. What do you need done, what’s your vision, and where do you work? Making democracy work better has been a pet drive of mine for an extremely long time.
EDIT: Upon your website loading and my finding that you push Approval Voting, I am now writing in about volunteering.
Improvements to collective decision making seem to be potentially an even bigger win. I mean, voting reform; the kind of thing advocated by Electology. Disclaimer: I’m a board member.
Why do I think that? Individual human decisionmaking has already been optimized by evolution. Sure, that optimization doesn’t fit perfectly with a modern need for rationality, but it’s pretty darn good. However, democratic decisionmaking is basically still using the first system that anybody ever thought of, and monte carlo utility simulations show that we can probably make it at least twice as good (using a random dictator as a baseline).
On the other hand, achieving voting reform requires a critical mass, while individual rationality only requires individuals. And electology is not as far along in organizational growth as CFAR. But it seems to me that it’s a complementary idea, and that it would be reasonable for an effective altruist to diversify their “saving throw” contributions. (We would also welcome rationalist board members or volunteers.)
Disclaimer: I now support you. What do you need done, what’s your vision, and where do you work? Making democracy work better has been a pet drive of mine for an extremely long time.
EDIT: Upon your website loading and my finding that you push Approval Voting, I am now writing in about volunteering.