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Wei_Dai comments on What Would it Take to "Prove" a Speculative Cause? - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: peter_hurford 07 August 2013 08:59PM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 10 August 2013 10:58:28PM 0 points [-]

So if we don't know about which has more ripple effects, we should invest in finding out, not pick at random.

I would agree that currently, we should invest in finding out, not pick at random, but we're likely to never achieve an understanding of ripple effects on par with our understanding of how well malaria nets or deworming efforts work, so if that's the bar you're setting (which you seem to be doing based on the post), then we'll never actually pick any object-level cause to support.

Comment author: peter_hurford 10 August 2013 11:34:01PM 0 points [-]

on par with our understanding of how well malaria nets or deworming efforts work, so if that's the bar you're setting (which you seem to be doing based on the post)

That's not what I'm saying. I actually intended my essay to argue/clarify against that.

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