“Refusing to Quantify is Refusing to Think (about trade-offs)” by Richard Y Chappell🔸

This is a link post. TL;DR: rough estimates are better than no estimates. Refusals to quantify often hide that one is implicitly (and unjustifiably) counting some interests for zero. Introduction Inspired by Bentham's Bulldog, I recently donated $1000 to the Shrimp Welfare Project. I don’t know that it's literally “the best charity”—longtermist interventions presumably have greater expected value—but I find it psychologically comforting to “diversify” my giving,[1] and the prospect of averting ~500 hours[2] of severe suffering per dollar seems hard to pass up. If you have some funds available that aren’t otherwise going to an even more promising cause, consider getting in on the #shrimpact!The train to #shrimpact The fact that most people would unreflectively dismiss shrimp welfare as a charitable cause shows why effective altruism is no “truism”. Relatively few people are genuinely open to promoting the good (and reducing suffering) in a truly cause-neutral, impartial way. For [...] ---Outline:(00:22) Introduction(01:55) A bad objection(02:10) “Different things can’t be precisely quantified or compared”(04:30) “Your analysis requires a lot of assumptions…”(06:31) Conventional Dogmatism(08:29) ConclusionThe original text contained 12 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: November 18th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FWuAsNkq8ern35kLQ/refusing-to-quantify-is-refusing-to-think-about-trade-offs --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.