We usually act as though the future matters less than today. Many institutions apply "discount rates" to the future as a way to formalize that view. But strange things happen if we assume even a 1% annual discount rate for social benefits. This would mean that saving a life this year is as valuable as saving roughly two lives in the year 2100 — and is also as valuable as saving more than one million lives in the year 3400.
This paper examines the arguments for applying social discount rates, argues that none of them work, and calls for treating the future as though it matters as much as the present. (35 mins.)
Political institutions generally operate on 2-to-4-year timescales, which aren’t long enough to address global issues (as the issue of climate change has shown). This talk analyzes sources of political short-termism and describes institutional reforms to align government incentives with the interests of all generations. (Video - 30 mins.)
A researcher from the Global Priorities Institute explains how investing resources, instead of spending them immediately, can allow us to do much more good. (Podcast - 2.5 hours)
I am writing up two charity ideas I’ve wanted to investigate, but haven’t been able to, in the hopes someone will investigate them further. If you end up investigating either, I'd be most interested to see what conclusions you come to!
Vulture preservation as a global health intervention
Since the mid 1990's the vulture population in India has been rapidly declining. The reason is due to a few chemicals which are fed to livestock, which is highly poisonous to vultures.
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Summary
This post will summarize the trajectory of Wild Animal Initiative’s field-building for wild animal welfare science so far, along with patterns and indicators we want to see more of going forward. Beginning with an initial phase focused on establishing credibility and awareness of the field, through a second phase that has placed more emphasis on the distinctiveness and broad priorities of the field, we are now moving into a third phase designed to co...