[ExI] What are among the world's most important problems to solve, why?
Anders
anders at aleph.se
Sat Jul 9 20:02:34 UTC 2016
On 2016-07-09 17:25, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
>
> A good article. However, it does not explain the apparent paradox of
> labeling a problem 'important' and then saying it does not deserve to
> be solved.
No, I am arguing that important problems may still be deferred to later.
Fixing the sun's expansion into a red giant is important, but it would
be stupid to reallocate resources used for pandemic readiness today into
solving it.
> Once I woke up in a car, after overindulging in beer, and found that
> we were going very fast down a lonely road. So I asked and he said
> that he was lost, and that his theory was to go as fast as he can so
> that he will find out sooner if he is going the wrong way. Fits right
> in to your article. I did solve the problem by looking out the
> windows, seeing the Big Dipper in the back window, and telling the
> driver that we were going South - which was wrong.
Figuring out where one should be going before spending effort going
forward is rational. In a car it might not be too costly to drive a few
miles wrong and maybe time is precious, but given the nonzero danger of
driving fast in unknown areas at night your friend probably made a bad
cost/benefit calculation.
The more costly mistakes or wasted effort (typically because of
opportunity costs) are, the more effort it is rational to put into
planning where one should go.
--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
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