Andreas Mogensen, a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, has just published a draft of a paper on "Maximal Cluelessness". Abstract:
I argue that many of the priority rankings that have been proposed by effective altruists seem to be in tension with apparently reasonable assumptions about the rational pursuit of our aims in the face of uncertainty. The particular issue on which I focus arises from recognition of the overwhelming importance and inscrutability of the indirect effects of our actions, conjoined with the plausibility of a permissive decision principle governing cases of deep uncertainty, known as the maximality rule. I conclude that we lack a compelling decision theory that is consistent with a long-termist perspective and does not downplay the depth of our uncertainty while supporting orthodox effective altruist conclusions about cause prioritization.
Mogensen writes (p. 20):
These concerns are forceful, but don't seem to generalize to all intervention types aimed at improving the long-term future. If one believes that the readily available evidence is insufficient to constrain our decision making, one still can accumulate resources to be disbursed at a later time when good enough evidence emerges. Although we may at present be radically uncertain about the sign and the magnitude of most far-future interventions, the intervention of accumulating resources for future disbursal does not itself appear to be subject to such radical uncertainty.
Indefinite accumulation of resources probably also increases the chance of being targeted by resource-seeking groups with military & political power.