#replaceability

[honey-locust-aesthetics]

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[altrunews]

When I first became interested in effective altruist ideas, I was inspired by the power of one person to make a difference: "the life you can save", as Peter Singer puts it.

I've sometimes donated to EA organizations such as the Centre for Effective Altruism, only to feel a twinge of regret when their funding goals are quickly met or even exceeded.

However, in the strictest sense, scientific research and high-impact charities like the Gates Foundation would fall into the red box as well, and I've been arguing that there's more efficiency in these areas than one might expect.

[altrunews]

Similarly, industries with very specialised skills/requirements, such as computer programming or EA organisations, will have more inelastic labour demand, as firms will find it less easy to replace workers, all else being equal.

However, one should be careful when applying this analysis, and proceed on a case-by-case basis, considering whether the labour market is competitive, if there are any restrictions or regulations on it and what the relative slopes of the supply and demand curves are likely to be.

On workers’ skill heterogeneity, I also have not considered the effects of imperfect information, in particular noisy signals of ability available to employers - my gut feeling is that hiring mistakes roughly cancel out, and the market ‘gets it right’ on average.

[parkparadigm]

Specific types of big systems are path-dependent and tend not to equilibrate. And therein lies the opportunity.

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/04/30/replaceability-and-the-economics-of-disequilibrium/