Economist specializing in cost-benefit analysis of complex public health and biorisk policies. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-people/bruns/ https://allegedwisdom.blogspot.com/
I sense that there is some kind of deep confusion or miscommunication here that may take a while to resolve. Have you read the Life-Valuation Variability post? In it, I explain why “The Value of a Statistical Life in a country” should be understood very narrowly and specifically as “The exchange rate between lives and money when taking money away from, or giving money to, people in that country”.
This post is not meant to tell individuals how to live their lives. There is a huge variation in individual preferences for leisure vs buying nice things. However, I do observe that most of the smart people are either FIREing or working at high-status jobs that give them utility. And there are reasons to believe that social pressures and monkey-brain instincts cause people to value consumption much more than they should if they were actually optimizing for happiness.
I think that it would be useful for people to think that their leisure is valued at $60 an hour, and adjust things accordingly. This is most useful for giving yourself permission to say no to unpleasant time-costing obligations that generate less than $60/hr of value for the world. And If you have the ability to do so, you should experiment with working less and consuming less, and enjoying more leisure, to see what that does for you.
I do believe that, after we have already maxed out all giving opportunities with a better payoff (i.e. we have solved all x-risk problems, ended global poverty, and put humanity on a path to filling the universe with flourishing life), and if there is enough automation of the production of basic needs to support it, then it would be optimal to pay everyone enough of a basic income so that nobody who earns less than $60 an hour ever has to work for a living if they don't want to.
Analytical EA types often tie themselves into knots trying to make a Grand Unified Theory to base all decisions on. This does not and will not work. All models are wrong, but some models are useful. You can, and should, use different heuristics in different situations. I am not trying to program an AI that I put in charge of the world. I am merely justifying treating all people's time the same for the purpose of EA cause prioritization with donor money.
Clearly it would break the economy to base all government policy on the assumption that consumption has no social value, and optimize hard on that assumption. Although yes, I do believe that a world where only 10% of people are operating critical infrastructure in exchange for high social status, and the rest get a basic income and (maybe) do 'hobby jobs', is both possible and desirable. That flows not from the leisure time valuation, but from a rather strong intuition that most current GDP goes to things that are either positional or an addiction.
Questions in order:
I agree with this; thank you for replying. (I thought I would get email alerts if anyone commented, but I guess I didn't set that up right.)
In a sense, EA is already doing this. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security is heavily funded by OpenPhil, and for the past month we have been going basically full-time on this:
http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/resources/COVID-19/index.html
However, having a private forum where people can openly communicate things that might get distorted if quoted out of context is very useful. I've joined the group, and am available to answer any questions there.
And if you want to participate in a prediction market, we have one running:
http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/disease-prediction
There are three questions on the coronavirus.
Also, in my preferred specification, I do not assume that average and marginal values are the same. An average value of $70 (relative to nonexistence) is perfectly compatible with the marginal value of the last hour of leisure (relative to working) to be equal to take-home pay. Assuming equality was just an extreme estimate to set a lower bound on things.