My only point of disagreement is that I don’t think the majority of charities whose good effects are hard to quantify (HtQ) in terms of lives saved are R&D, unless you count something like education for women before the effects on reproduction were observed as R&D.
I think HtQ projects might fall into two categories, R&D and improving qualia.
It’s R&D until we have a known, repeatable way to get the result we want :p
Improving qualia strikes me as giving up too soon—sure we can’t perfectly quantify quality of life, happiness, social adjustment, music appreciation, and well-roundedness—but it’s still useful to use what we can when deciding to improve the world on these axis.
My only point of disagreement is that I don’t think the majority of charities whose good effects are hard to quantify (HtQ) in terms of lives saved are R&D, unless you count something like education for women before the effects on reproduction were observed as R&D.
I think HtQ projects might fall into two categories, R&D and improving qualia.
It’s R&D until we have a known, repeatable way to get the result we want :p
Improving qualia strikes me as giving up too soon—sure we can’t perfectly quantify quality of life, happiness, social adjustment, music appreciation, and well-roundedness—but it’s still useful to use what we can when deciding to improve the world on these axis.