Recent Topic Activity

Perry, Lucas (2019) AI Alignment Podcast: On the governance of AI with Jade Leung,AI, Future of Life Institute, July 22.

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   Kagan, Rebecca, Jade Leung[redacted], & Ben Clifford (2021) What we learned from a year incubating longtermist entrepreneurship, Effective Altruism Forum, August 30.

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   Bergal, Asya (2021) Long-Term Future Fund: May 2021 grant recommendations, Effective Altruism Forum, May 27.

Kagan, Rebecca, Jade Leung[redacted], & Ben Clifford (2021) What we learned from a year incubating longtermist entrepreneurship, Effective Altruism Forum, August 30.

For example, there are some reasons to think that the long-term effects of a marginally higher economic growth rate would be good—overall good or c-preferable—say, via drivingby fostering more patient and pro-social attitudes. This would mean that taking action to increase economic growth could have much better effects than not taking the action. We have some reasons to think that the long-term effects of a marginally higher economic growth rate would be bad —for example, via increased carbon emissions leading to climate change. This would mean that not taking the action that increases economic growth could be a much better idea. It is not immediately obvious that one of these is better than the other, but we also cannot say they have equal expected value. Rather, the EV is indeterminate. 
We care about the overall effects of a marginally higher economic growth rate (~P1). If we have no reason to believe that our best guess (on whether it is overall net good or bad) is truth-tracking because of substantial unawareness, we should not follow this best guess (~P2). Given how coarse our awareness of the possible consequences of a marginally higher economic growth rate in fact is, we indeed are in such a situation (~P3).

DiGiovanni offers a comprehensive list of potential objections to his argument, and their rebuttals, but he also mentions two attempts to find action-guidance despite cluelessness: i) consequentialist bracketing, and ii) a metaepistemic wager.

While the term consequentialist bracketing was first used by DiGiovanni (2025b)^[3], the idea was formalized by Kollin et al. (2025). It basically aims at providing a principled way of excluding some paralyzing considerations from our decision-making (i.e., "bracketing them out") to find action-guidance, butguidance. Still, it comes with (at least) the following potential problems:

DiGiovanni offers a comprehensive list of potential objections to his argument, and their rebuttals, but he mentions two attempts to find action-guidance despite cluelessness: i) consequentialist bracketing, and ii) a metaepistemic wager. Both are discussed below, right after we get more precise on DiGiovanni's empirical premise.

For example, there are some reasons to think that the long-term effects of a marginally higher economic growth rate would be good—say, via driving more patient and pro-social attitudes. This would mean that taking action to increase economic growth could have much better effects than not taking the action. We have some reasons to think that the long-term effects of a marginally higher economic growth rate would be bad —for example, via increased carbon emissions leading to climate change. This would mean that not taking the action that increases economic growth could be a much better idea. It is not immediately obvious that one of these is better than the other, but we also cannot say they have equal expected value. We care about the overall effects of a marginally higher economic growth rate (~P1). If we have no reason to believe that our best guess (on whether it is overall net good or bad) is truth-tracking because of substantial unawareness, we should not follow this best guess (~P2). Given how coarse our awareness of the possible consequences of a marginally higher economic growth rate in fact is, we indeed are in such a situation (~P3).

DiGiovanni also offers a comprehensive list of potential objections to his argument, and their rebuttals, but he mentions two attempts to find action-guidance despite cluelessness: i) consequentialist bracketing, and ii) a metaepistemic wager. Both are discussed below, right after we get more precise on DiGiovanni's empirical premise.

1. Consequentialist bracketing can make contradictory recommendations depending on what is considered the value location, and picking a particular one seems arbitrary (Clifton 2025; DiGiovanni 2025b).^[4]
2. Even if it doesn't, it is not clear what it implies. Neartermism? (Kollin et al. 2025; DiGiovanni 2025b.) Or should we even bracket out some unsignable near-term effects? Or a halfway form of longtermism? (Clifton 2025; Buhler 2025.)
3. It violates the sure-thing principle, although DiGiovanni argues this may not be an issue.
4. It may seem ad hoc, to the point where it might not seemappear any more compelling/justified than pretending we are not clueless in the first place.

The Cross-Cause Fund (CCF) is an expert-managed cause-neutral fund. It is run by Rethink Priorities' cross-cause fund team, which is composed of members of its Leadership and Executive Team, Worldview Investigation Team, and Interdisciplinary Research Team.

It was launched in May 2026 as a fund explicitly aimed at full impartiality across(across all cause areas.areas)^[1]  — at a time when, per RP's own analysis, only 2% of EA prioritization resources were allocated to cross-cause prioritization, an area RP describes as historically underdeveloped in effective giving. 

This sentence from the CCF website offers a good summary of the goal and intent:

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   With two caveats. First, RP cannot consider political candidates as potential beneficiaries of donations. Second, as of August 2026, multiple worthy causes have not yet been included in the evaluation, e.g., meta work (though the causes that have been included were prioritized intentionally, given specific cross-cause prioritization assumptions)assumptions plus lack of time to get closer to an ideal allocation). See the CCF FAQ for more related information.

Faunalytics’ 2026-20302028 Strategic PlanPlan

1. Consequentialist bracketing can make contradictory recommendations depending on what is considered the value location, and picking a particular one seems arbitrary (Clifton 2025; DiGiovanni 2025b).^[4]
2. Even if it doesn't, it is not clear what it implies. Neartermism? (Kollin et al. 2025; DiGiovanni 2025b.) Or should we even bracket out some unsignable near-term effects? Or a halfway form of longtermism? (Clifton 2025; Buhler 2025.)
3. It violates the sure-thing principle, although DiGiovanni argues this may not be an issue.
4. It may seem ad hoc, to the point where it might not seem any more compelling/justified than pretending we are not clueless in the first place.

Greaves, Hilary, and William MacAskill. 2025. “The Case for Strong Longtermism.” In Essays on Longtermism: Present Action for the Distant Future, edited by Hilary Greaves, Jacob Barrett, and David Thorstad. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780191979972.003.00030003..

Impartial Partially. 2026. "Bottom-Up Bracketing: A Person-Centered Response to Cluelessness." October 17. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qpQSEy7n2WjxazFnf/bottom-up-bracketing-a-person-centered-response-to

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   The term originated with Lenman (2000) and was further popularized, especially within the EA community, by Greaves (2016). This exact definition is mostly inspired by DiGiovanni (2026).

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   See also the related discussions offered by Tarsney et al. (2024, §3), The Global Priorities Institute (2024, §§1.2.1 and 4.2.1), Greaves and MacAskill (2025, §7.2), and Kollin et al. (2025, §§2 and 7).

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   To differentiate it from metanormative bracketing.

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Although see Impartial Partially (2026) for a pushback.

Show all footnotes

1. Consequentialist bracketing can make contradictory recommendations depending on what is considered the value location, and picking a particular one seems arbitrary (Clifton 2025; DiGiovanni 2025b).
2. Even if it doesn't, it is not clear what it implies. Neartermism? (Kollin et al. 2025; DiGiovanni 2025b.) Or should we even bracket out some unsignable near-term effects? Or a halfway form of longtermism? (Clifton 2025; Buhler 2025.)
3. It violates the sure-thing principle, although DiGiovanni argues this may not be an issue.
4. It just seems incrediblymay seem ad hoc, to the point where it might not seem any more compelling/justified than pretending we are not clueless in the first place.

• i) Given our reasons for cluelessness that motivate this proposal to being with, why would wagering on some best guess A be any less arbitrary than wagering on the hypothetical reverse best guess B? As DiGiovanni (2025a) writes: “if there are reasons our intuitions about an unfamiliar domain could systematically deviate from the truth, and we don’t know how to weigh these up against the reasons for truth-tracking, it seems indeterminate whether our intuitions are truth-tracking overall!”
• ii) To the extent that this proposal relies on metanormative bracketing, #3 and #4, above, bite just as hard. It may also get its own version of #3#1 (see DiGiovanni 2025b; Buhler's comment).

The Cross-Cause Fund (CCF) is an expert-managed cause-neutral fund. It is run by Rethink Priorities' cross-cause fund team, which is composed of members of its Leadership and Executive team,Team, Worldview Investigation Team, and Interdisciplinary Research Team.

It was launched in May 2026 as a fund explicitly aimed at full impartiality across all cause areas.^[1]  — at a time when, per RP's own analysis, only 2% of EA prioritization resources were allocated to cross-cause prioritization, an area RP describes as historically underdeveloped in effective giving. 

This sentence from the CCF website offers a good summary of the goal and intent:

Related entries

donation choice | philanthropic coordination | philanthropic diversification | earning to give | effective giving | effective altruism funding | moral cooperation

donation choice | diminishing returns | philanthropic coordination | philanthropic diversification | room for more funding | impact assessment | earning to give | effective altruism funding | moral cooperation |

The Cross-Cause Fund (CCF) is an expert-managed cause-neutral fund. It is run by Rethink Priorities' cross-cause fund team, which is composed of members of its Leadership and Executive team, Worldview Investigation Team, and Interdisciplinary Research Team.

It was launched in May 2026 as a fund explicitly aimed at full impartiality across all cause areas.^[1]  — at a time when, per RP's own analysis, only 2% of EA prioritization resources were allocated to cross-cause prioritization, an area RP describes as historically underdeveloped in effective giving. 

This sentence from the CCF website offers a good summary of the goal and intent:

We start from the question of where a marginal dollar is likely to do the most good across all cause areas we cover, and we allocate accordingly.

1. ^{^}

   With two caveats. First, RP cannot consider political candidates as potential beneficiaries of donations. Second, as of August 2026, multiple worthy causes have not yet been included in the evaluation, e.g., meta work (though the causes that have been included were prioritized intentionally, given specific cross-cause prioritization assumptions). See the CCF FAQ for more related information.