To specify what you mean, I believe the important idea is a question: how can we use replaceability to measure the impact (or expected value) of social change?
I believe traction can be made towards solving this problem, but I still believe it will be difficult. I notice that you use the historical example of Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s activism, but you want to measure social impact in the present, or for the future. However, I notice that I can’t recall reading about anyone, effective altruists or otherwise, ever measuring the impact of social change in the past. Like, we take Martin Luther King, Jr.’s success for granted, even though we haven’t tried quantifying it at all. We could then try comparing King’s success to other activist strategies: those which worked well, and others less so.
In measuring the impact of historical efforts, we are measuring in a field where we have access to all the measurable data. So, that makes studying history good practice grounds for figuring out what to look for in estimating social impact in the future.
Here’s some suggestions for doing that:
One can learn how to measure anything, and practice for free, which should help in measuring something as abstract as the impact of social change. I believe trying to measure other intangibles as practice a bit will give one experience to gauge how to measure the impact of social change. From there, realizing getting some kind, any kind of metric(s) placed on what you’re trying to measure in social change is better than having no metric(s).
One can also study Givewell’s History of Philanthropy Project to get a sense of how they determined which historical points were worth considering. Then, you can try replicating it a bit in studying the history of social change. Note that Givewell’s project focuses upon the history of philanthropy in the United States, which might be a narrower and simpler section to assess than the history of social change.
In regards to determining where to start with at a point in history, asking some historians, and the community, what heuristics they would use could help. Givewell itself hired some actual historians.
The guide How To Measure Anything may give some ideas, but I believe the metric you’ll be developing for social impact will be more similar to metrics used in global studies or reports from the WHO, or other NGOs, or in charity evaluation. Perhaps review the field of sociology for any ideas it has for measuring social change.
This is a framework for figuring out how to measure the impact that we must create for ourselves. Frankly, the idea of replaceability, let measurement, in social change might be rare enough that we might be the first ones to put that method together.
To specify what you mean, I believe the important idea is a question: how can we use replaceability to measure the impact (or expected value) of social change?
I believe traction can be made towards solving this problem, but I still believe it will be difficult. I notice that you use the historical example of Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s activism, but you want to measure social impact in the present, or for the future. However, I notice that I can’t recall reading about anyone, effective altruists or otherwise, ever measuring the impact of social change in the past. Like, we take Martin Luther King, Jr.’s success for granted, even though we haven’t tried quantifying it at all. We could then try comparing King’s success to other activist strategies: those which worked well, and others less so.
In measuring the impact of historical efforts, we are measuring in a field where we have access to all the measurable data. So, that makes studying history good practice grounds for figuring out what to look for in estimating social impact in the future.
Here’s some suggestions for doing that:
One can learn how to measure anything, and practice for free, which should help in measuring something as abstract as the impact of social change. I believe trying to measure other intangibles as practice a bit will give one experience to gauge how to measure the impact of social change. From there, realizing getting some kind, any kind of metric(s) placed on what you’re trying to measure in social change is better than having no metric(s).
One can also study Givewell’s History of Philanthropy Project to get a sense of how they determined which historical points were worth considering. Then, you can try replicating it a bit in studying the history of social change. Note that Givewell’s project focuses upon the history of philanthropy in the United States, which might be a narrower and simpler section to assess than the history of social change.
In regards to determining where to start with at a point in history, asking some historians, and the community, what heuristics they would use could help. Givewell itself hired some actual historians.
The guide How To Measure Anything may give some ideas, but I believe the metric you’ll be developing for social impact will be more similar to metrics used in global studies or reports from the WHO, or other NGOs, or in charity evaluation. Perhaps review the field of sociology for any ideas it has for measuring social change.
This is a framework for figuring out how to measure the impact that we must create for ourselves. Frankly, the idea of replaceability, let measurement, in social change might be rare enough that we might be the first ones to put that method together.