What Holden Karnofsky thinks about optimism

@holden-karnofsky · 16 positions · On ppll ↗

Co-founder of GiveWell, the charity evaluator that ranks giving opportunities by how much good a dollar does, and later of Open Philanthropy. Wrote the blog Cold Takes from 2021 to 2023 on ethics, forecasting and the long-run future.

Holden Karnofsky did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Holden Karnofsky on optimism. See everyone on optimism

1 dated position, 2011, in their own words. Our reading of what Holden Karnofsky has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. 18 Aug 2011

   Our readingThe deeper anyone digs into a charity's cost-effectiveness estimate, the more unwarranted optimism they find, so the right prior on giving is a sceptical one.

   Their wordsGiving well seems conceptually quite difficult to me, and it’s been my experience over time that the more we dig on a cost-effectiveness estimate, the more unwarranted optimism we uncover.

   ↗Why we can’t take expected value estimates literally (even when they’re unbiased)blog.givewell.org 7th of 8 in this piece