One problem with trying to work for the long term good is that it’s hard to steer due to lack of feedback from acting on the world. What lies at the Pareto frontier where you can actually get feedback but are helping the long term? Influencing policy might be an example as you can see whether there are short term consequences to what you’re doing. Any others?
I definitely agree that it can be challenging, especially when focusing on preventing things that might never happen (but would be very harmful if they did). That being said, I’m a bit unsure of your scoping here: Would feedback from fellow researchers be a good example of this? Answering questions that you started out unsure about?
It's a broad question, but I think feedback that isn't tied to 'real world' events is out of scope. I'm thinking of how for example a startup might make a product, put it in front of users, and then find out some need they hadn't thought of in advance.