Terminate deliberation based on resilience, not certainty – Gregory Lewis
“We should ponder until it no longer feels right to ponder, and then to choose one of the acts it feels most right to choose… If pondering comes at a cost, we should ponder only if it seems we will be able to separate better options from worse options quickly enough to warrant the pondering” – Trammell Many choices are both highly uncertain, highly consequential, and difficult to develop a highly-confident impression of which option is best. In EA-land, the archetypal example is career choice, but similar dilemmas are common in corporate decision-making (e.g. grant-making, organisational strategy) and life generally (e.g. “Should I marry Alice?” “Should I have children with Bob?”). Thinking carefully about these choices is wise, and my impression is people tend to err in the direction of too little contemplation – stumbling over important thresholds that set the stage for the rest of their lives. One of the (perhaps the main) key messages of effective altruism is our altruistic effort
BLUF: “We should ponder until it no longer feels right to ponder, and then to choose one of the acts it feels most right to choose… If pondering comes at a cost, we should ponder only if it seems we will be able to separate better options from worse options quickly enough to warrant the pondering” – Trammell Introduction Many choices are both highly uncertain, highly consequential, and difficult to develop a highly-confident impression of which option is best. In EA-land, the archetypal example is career choice, but similar dilemmas are common in corporate decision-making (e.g. grant-mak
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