That’s a fair point except that I certainly did not say nor mean “the median beneficiary” should be within the conversation at EAG and EAG-type contexts. I said that orgs like GiveDirectly and Fistula Foundation could be contacted to see which outstanding people they are in contact with might be ideal to bring to EAGs.
The people I speak of, don’t even necessarily need to be be beneficiaries at all. They should just be, as I said, “people who grew up and/or currently live/work in these places.” They might indeed be beneficiaries who now also work with these orgs in some capacity, or maybe they are not beneficiaries at all. Such people who grow up in a place, generally have way better understanding, and even sometimes out of the box thinking, about problems and solutions, etc.
I have met a very few such people at EAGs, so they sometimes are there in numbers of like 1-3 per conference, they are fairly easy to find and I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one who seeks them out, and if I have met more of these people than anyone else, even though I don’t go to too many conferences overall. Personally I really enjoy speaking to them and have learned a lot from them. (But the fact that I think not too many people seem to care to find them and talk with them, makes me wonder if they themselves would find it worth it to visit an EAG in the first place from their own perspective.)
[edit 2 min after posting: “if you choose exceptional beneficiaries to represent the class of beneficiaries as a whole, that leads to a different set of problems.”—I’m not sure what you meant by this part. surely it seems better to me to have some representation than zero representation.]
Just ideas, thank you so much for commenting back with your thoughts !!
If your idea is that in-country employees/contractors of organizations like GiveDirectly, Fistula Foundation, AMF, MC, Living Goods, etc., should be invited to EA Global — I agree, and I think these folks often have useful information to add to the conversation. Though I don’t assume everyone in these orgs is a good fit, many are and it’s worth having those voices. Some have an uncritical mindset, basically just doing what they’re told, while others are a little bit too sharp-elbowed and are just looking at what can get funders’ attention without caring how good it actually is.
On the other hand, if your idea is to (for example) invite some folks from villages where GiveDirectly is operating, I pretty strongly feel that this would be a waste of resources. We can get a much better perspective from this group by surveying (and indeed GiveWell and GiveDirectly have sponsored such surveys). If you were to just choose randomly, I think most of those chosen wouldn’t be in a good position to contribute to discussions; and if you were to choose village elites, then you end up with a systematic bias to elite interests, which has been a serious systematic problem in trying to make bottom-up charitable interventions work.
That’s a fair point except that I certainly did not say nor mean “the median beneficiary” should be within the conversation at EAG and EAG-type contexts. I said that orgs like GiveDirectly and Fistula Foundation could be contacted to see which outstanding people they are in contact with might be ideal to bring to EAGs.
The people I speak of, don’t even necessarily need to be be beneficiaries at all. They should just be, as I said, “people who grew up and/or currently live/work in these places.” They might indeed be beneficiaries who now also work with these orgs in some capacity, or maybe they are not beneficiaries at all. Such people who grow up in a place, generally have way better understanding, and even sometimes out of the box thinking, about problems and solutions, etc.
I have met a very few such people at EAGs, so they sometimes are there in numbers of like 1-3 per conference, they are fairly easy to find and I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one who seeks them out, and if I have met more of these people than anyone else, even though I don’t go to too many conferences overall. Personally I really enjoy speaking to them and have learned a lot from them. (But the fact that I think not too many people seem to care to find them and talk with them, makes me wonder if they themselves would find it worth it to visit an EAG in the first place from their own perspective.)
[edit 2 min after posting: “if you choose exceptional beneficiaries to represent the class of beneficiaries as a whole, that leads to a different set of problems.”—I’m not sure what you meant by this part. surely it seems better to me to have some representation than zero representation.]
Just ideas, thank you so much for commenting back with your thoughts !!
If your idea is that in-country employees/contractors of organizations like GiveDirectly, Fistula Foundation, AMF, MC, Living Goods, etc., should be invited to EA Global — I agree, and I think these folks often have useful information to add to the conversation. Though I don’t assume everyone in these orgs is a good fit, many are and it’s worth having those voices. Some have an uncritical mindset, basically just doing what they’re told, while others are a little bit too sharp-elbowed and are just looking at what can get funders’ attention without caring how good it actually is.
On the other hand, if your idea is to (for example) invite some folks from villages where GiveDirectly is operating, I pretty strongly feel that this would be a waste of resources. We can get a much better perspective from this group by surveying (and indeed GiveWell and GiveDirectly have sponsored such surveys). If you were to just choose randomly, I think most of those chosen wouldn’t be in a good position to contribute to discussions; and if you were to choose village elites, then you end up with a systematic bias to elite interests, which has been a serious systematic problem in trying to make bottom-up charitable interventions work.