I have the impression that the most effective interventions, especially in global health/poverty, are usually temporary, in the sense that you need to keep reinvesting regularly, usually because the intervention provides a consumable good; for example malaria chemoprevention: it needs to be provided yearly. In contrast, solutions that seem more permanent in the long-term (e.g. a hypothetical malaria vaccination, or building infrastructure), are typically much less cost-effective on the margin because of their high cost. How do we balance pure marginal effectiveness vs eventually moving towards more permanent solutions? Could it be that by overly optimising for marginal cost-effectiveness, we might be missing a better ‘global maximum’ in the utility landscape, but we just need to descend from the current ‘local maximum’ to be able to get there eventually?

* Re the new 2024 Rethink Cause Prio survey: "The EA community should defer to mainstream experts on most topics, rather than embrace contrarian views. [“Defer to experts”]" 3% strongly agree, 18% somewhat agree, 35% somewhat disagree, 15% strongly disagree. * This seems pretty bad to me, especially for a group that frames itself as recognizing intellectual humility/we (base rate for an intellectual movement) are so often wrong. * (Charitable interpretation) It's also just the case that EAs tend to have lots of views that they're being contrarian about because they're trying to maximize the the expected value of information (often justified with something like: "usually contrarians are wrong, but if they are right, they are often more valuable for information than average person who just agrees"). * If this is the case, though, I fear that some of us are confusing the norm of being contrarian instrumental reasons and for "being correct" reasons.  Tho lmk if you disagree. 

Quick Pitch for Using Toggl * Reduces task switching: * Actively changing the task in Toggl makes you more aware of switching. * Helps maintain focus on one task longer. * For small or miscellaneous tasks, I use grouped categories (e.g. "Smalls", "Slack/email") and batch them.   * Tracks time against priorities: * Allows reflection on whether your actual time spent aligns with your intended priorities. * Easy to spot when too much time is going to low-priority tasks.   * Improves time estimation: * Over time, you get calibrated on how long tasks really take. * Some tasks consistently take longer than expected. * Some tasks you’ve procrastinated on turn out to be quick (e.g. took 5 mins).   * Supports manager alignment: * Makes it easier to discuss priorities and time allocation with your manager * Helps identify tasks that could be delegated or streamlined. * Useful for recognizing when something is taking more time than baselines   * Assists with planning: * Helps forecast quarterly workloads using historical data. * Useful when planning repeated projects (e.g. hiring) by reviewing how much time it took previously.

Reminder that if we reach $15K, we'll run a debate week of the Forum's choice.   

As one of the largest single donations ever, Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25B to provide 25M American children new investment accounts: https://apnews.com/article/michael-dell-susan-trump-accounts-stock-market-poverty-inequality-7e2615d50a3fc0563109ed0eeb4c41e1