“The relative range heuristic” by Karthik Tadepalli

This is a rough explanation of relative ranges, a heuristic that I've found very helpful for quickly comparing two options that trade off between two dimensions. Consider the following examples of tradeoffs:

1. Should we prioritize helping small animals or large animals? There are more small animals, but large animals have a higher capacity for suffering.


2. Should we fund medical research on the most promising candidates across diseases, or should we focus only on the most important diseases? Broad search is more likely to lead to a successful treatment, but targeted search can lead to treatments for higher-burden diseases.


3. If we fund a recurring health/consumption survey, should we fund it annually or quarterly? More rounds leads to higher-frequency information, but at a higher cost.

You could answer these questions by carefully quantifying the value of each parameter – the actual population of different types [...]

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Outline:

(02:46) Formalization

(04:16) There are more probabilities in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy

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First published:

July 9th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mgv6d2nDMHAkLotbp/the-relative-range-heuristic

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.