The Badness Rate of Apparent Bads Is ~.5
One of the more depressing realizations of my life followed by an explanation of why it shouldn't be that depressing. Also, why risk averse altruists should become president.
I think I’m a decently ethical person. I don’t eat animals, donate to effective charities, and am, hopefully, decently nice to the people around me. Given this, if I’d been asked in high school what the odds were that my existence makes the world a better place, I’d have said around 90%. It’s possible that I’m catastrophically wrong about something—perhaps humans’ effects on wild animals are so severely negative that most humans are a net negative—but barring that, my net effect on the world is probably positive. Now, sadly, I have a much more sobering answer: very near 50%—perhaps 50.0001%.
This result is depressing but true. I think I can prove that it’s true beyond a reasonable doubt. And it’s not limited to me—the odds that most seemingly bad things actually turn out for the worse is likewise about 50%. The average homicide seems quite bad, but there’s only around a 50% chance that the world is worse for it.
There is, however, a spot of bright news: this shouldn’t be depressing. While your actual effect is very unpredictable, your expected effect is positive. And that’s what should matter for your decision-making. While finding out that my life has only around a 50% chance of being good for the world was sobering at first, I think one shouldn’t find it depressing. In fact, it can help free us from certain kinds of error owing to undue risk aversion, deontology, and other irrationality.
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