Comment on 'What is the expected effect of poverty alleviation efforts on existential risk?'

Abstract

When evaluating interventions with multiple outcome metrics, it’s crucial to prioritize the primary effects. Even if an intervention has a small, uncertain secondary effect on another metric, it’s unlikely to outweigh the primary benefit. For example, cash transfers are highly effective at reducing poverty but may have minor, uncertain effects on other concerns like animal welfare or existential risk. While offsetting these secondary effects is possible, the cost of producing a comparable benefit in those dimensions would be small compared to the poverty alleviation benefits. Therefore, focusing on the primary effect of cash transfers and making small offsetting donations for other concerns can lead to positive outcomes across multiple metrics, especially if poverty alleviation is a higher priority.