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Critique of the notion that impact follows a power-law distribution — EA Forum

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EDIT (2024-03-15): I changed the original title from "There are no massive differences in impact between individuals" to "Critique of the notion that impact follows a power-law distribution". More explanation in this footnote[1]. "It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others." - attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Tomasik 2014(2017) I have developed and refined the ideas in the following paragraphs at least since May 2022 - my first notes specifically on the topic were taken after I listened to Will MacAskill talk about “high-impact opportunities” at the opening session of my first EA Global, London 2022. My thoughts on the topic were mainly sparked by interactions with the effective altruism community (EA), either in direct conversations or through things that I read and listened to over the last few years. However, I have encountered these arguments outside EA as well, among activists, political strategists, and

Jeff Kaufman 🔸 2y 79 17 0 5 1 I think it might be helpful to look at a simple case, one of the best cases for the claim that your altruistic options differ in expected impact by orders of magnitude, and see if we agree there? Consider two people, both in "the probably neutral role of someone working a 'bullshit job'". Both donate a portion of their income to GiveWell's top charities: one $100k/y and the other $1k/y. Would you agree that the altruistic impact of the first is, ex-ante, 100x that of the second? Reply

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