Three heuristics for finding cause X

Abstract

In the October 2016 EA Newsletter, we discussed Will MacAskill’s idea that discovering some important, but unaddressed moral catastrophe—which he calls “Cause X”—could be one of the most important goals of the EA community. By its very nature, Cause X is likely to be an idea that today seems implausible or silly, but will seem obvious in the future just as ideas like animal welfare or existential risk were laughable in the past. This characteristic of Cause X—that it may seem implausible at first—makes searching for Cause X a difficult challenge.

Fortunately, I think we can look at the history of past Cause X-style ideas to uncover some heuristics we can use to search for and evaluate potential Cause X candidates. I suggest three such heuristics below.