All of Jelle Donders's Comments + Replies

Responses to Toby Ord's 'critique' of progress studies?

Yes, that's correct. Ord's writes this about discount rates:

The issue raised by this paper has also been masked in many economic analyses by an assumption of pure time-preference: that society should have a discount rate on value itself. If we use that assumption, we end up with a somewhat different argument for advancing progress — one based on impatience; on merely getting to the good stuff sooner, even if that means getting less of it.
Even then, the considerations I’ve raised would undermine this argument. For if it does turn out that advancing pr

Jelle Donders2y1

This works both ways imo. You can boldly state things in a manifesto, and people can boldly criticize it.

1jasoncrawford2yHaha, fair point! (Although I would suggest that the most productive way to do that would be to pen an opposing manifesto.)

Marc Andreessen pens “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Discuss

Jelle Donders2y1

The precautionary principle is objectively bad? That's a massive assumption that only holds if you are somehow confident that nuclear war, engineered pandemics, advanced AI derailing society etc. are all impossible, right?

3jasoncrawford2yNo. The Precautionary Principle doesn't just mean “take precautions when warranted.” No one would be against that. It has become more like a bias towards inaction, regardless of cost/benefit calculations. See Ridley's quote above, about how this “superficially sensible idea” was transformed into something irrational.

Why consumerism is good actually

Jelle Donders2y1

To see the other perspective, try replacing "consumption" with food and "consumerism" with obesity. We only have 1 earth (for the foreseeable future), and rampant consumerism leads to a very inefficient conversion from its resources to value.

Also, you can still be anti-consumerism while agreeing that the global south would ideally see higher consumption. Reducing obesity doesn't mean we shouldn't feed the starving.