I think this is an imperfect comparison since finding the most effective health intervention isn’t equivalent to finding the most effective animal charity; rather, finding the most effective health intervention is equivalent to finding the cheapest website to put up vegan ads. The true uncertainty over poverty relief—the way it interacts with governance systems and dictates long term development trends—necessarily needs to be included as well. And we don’t know much about which poverty charities are best under that metric. I don’t think it’s right to imply that it is a vague or optional “far future” concern, as it’s a concrete issue that can’t be ignored.
Moreover, why refer to the median animal intervention as the baseline? If we want the expected value of picking a charity at random, we’ll want to use the average. And if there are a few interventions which are 250x as good as the best poverty charities with most of them being ineffective, then that will strongly improve the estimate above what we would get if using the median.
Besides, we’re not totally blind about animal charities and we can still make some improvements over random charity selection. I think it’s reasonable to expect that we have at least a 1-in-250 chance of selecting the best animal charity. If so, then we should expect animal charity to be better than human charity on average.
Note that if this does turn out to be a close decision then the meat eater problem becomes significant again. The typical response to problems of meat consumption is that anyone who cares sufficiently about animals will donate to animal charities anyway; however, if the OP’s reasoning is correct then we now have to take it seriously into consideration.
The biggest takeaway here is that animal charity research is a really good cause.
“The biggest takeaway here is that animal charity research is a really good cause.”
I agree—if we’re highly certain we’ve found the best poverty interventions, or close to, and the best animal interventions might be ~250x as effective as the best poverty interventions, that should argue for increased animal charity research. But Peter is definitely right in that the higher robustness of existing human interventions (ignoring flow on effects like the poor meat eater problem) is a potentially valid reason to pick poverty interventions now over animal interventions now.
Moreover, why refer to the median animal intervention as the baseline? If we want the expected value of picking a charity at random, we’ll want to use the average.
Yep, you’re right… I got confused about that… :/ Updated the post!
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The true uncertainty over poverty relief—the way it interacts with governance systems and dictates long term development trends—necessarily needs to be included as well. And we don’t know much about which poverty charities are best under that metric. I don’t think it’s right to imply that it is a vague or optional “far future” concern, as it’s a concrete issue that can’t be ignored.
Of course… and I don’t intend to ignore it; in fact I explicitly dedicate a section to it. But it’s hard to write a comprehensive article about that right now and I thought it would be good to get this thought out now with a bunch of caveats.
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I think this is an imperfect comparison since finding the most effective health intervention isn’t equivalent to finding the most effective animal charity; rather, finding the most effective health intervention is equivalent to finding the cheapest website to put up vegan ads.
It certainly is an imperfect comparison, but it’s not as imperfect as what you suggest. While there are many problems with DCP and while DCP does not take into account flow through effects, it at least takes into account whether there is reasonable first pass evidence that the intervention works, which we definitely don’t have for veg ads.
To oversimplify again, imagine there are three things we need to know:
1.) Does veg ads / water purification work?
2.) What is the cheapest way to run veg ads / water purification? What’s the cost-effectiveness?
3.) What effects do veg ads / water purification have in the long run? How large are these effects relative to the direct effects?
For water purification, we mostly have 1 and 2, whereas for veg ads we have some guesses at 2 and very little work on 1.
Of course, 3 may dominate and make work on 1 or 2 moot.
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Besides, we’re not totally blind about animal charities and we can still make some improvements over random charity selection.
Yes, I believe I account for that in the post. Likewise, DCP is not a purely random selection of global poverty charities.
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I think it’s reasonable to expect that we have at least a 1-in-250 chance of selecting the best animal charity. If so, then we should expect animal charity to be better than human charity on average.
I’m not sure how that follows. Could you sketch that out for me?
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Note that if this does turn out to be a close decision then the meat eater problem becomes significant again. The typical response to problems of meat consumption is that anyone who cares sufficiently about animals will donate to animal charities anyway; however, if the OP’s reasoning is correct then we now have to take it seriously into consideration.
Yes, it seems pretty plausible that could be a crucial consideration for picking between global poverty and animal welfare interventions right now. However, I don’t think everyone who is concerned about the poor meat eater problem donates to animal charities, though I guess it depends on what you mean by cares sufficiently.
Of course… and I don’t intend to ignore it; in fact I explicitly dedicate a section to it. But it’s hard to write a comprehensive article about that right now and I thought it would be good to get this thought out now with a bunch of caveats.
I know, I’m just saying that the method of presentation is sort of problematic because it implies that the future effects are a secondary or unnecessary concern. Some people think that it’s silly to worry about the effect of interventions on e.g. social systems 200 years from now, so they ignore far future effects. But the effects of poverty interventions upon social directions and governance within a 25-year timeframe are a different story and shouldn’t be lumped in with the former kinds of issues.
I’m not sure how that follows. Could you sketch that out for me?
Well if the best animal charities are 250x better than the best human charities then a 1-in-250 chance of picking the best animal charity implies that it’s just as good as completely certain donations to the best human charity.
Well if the best animal charities are 250x better than the best human charities then a 1-in-250 chance of picking the best animal charity implies that it’s just as good as completely certain donations to the best human charity.
That would only be true if there were no charities of negative value that you might accidentally pick.
Assuming a reasonable prior about the effects of charities, if there are a few at 250x then there are also more at 200x, 150x and 100x that we are likely to fund, but the chance that we would accidentally pick a harmful charity when we think we are picking the best one is tiny if we know anything about charities. Even granting an assumption of being totally ignorant about charities and picking randomly, to argue that human charities are better you would have to assume that for every effort which is +250, there is an effort which is at least as bad as −249, and for every effort which is +200, there is an effort which is at least as bad as −199, or at least an average which has the same effect—with almost half of animal charities being net negative.
Note that in that case you would be arguing that the vast majority of the perceived superiority of animal charities is due simply to variance. That seems false because we have strong reasons to expect animal charities to be fundamentally more effective due to the neglectedness of the issue and the intensity of the problem, and I don’t see any prior reason to expect animal charities to be more variable in effectiveness than human charities.
Even granting an assumption of being totally ignorant about charities and picking randomly, to argue that human charities are better you would have to assume that for every effort which is +250, there is an effort which is at least as bad as −249
You don’t necessarily have to assume the impacts are normally distributed around 0 -- they could take a wide variety of distributions.
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I don’t see any prior reason to expect animal charities to be more variable in effectiveness than human charities.
Why not? It seems much easier to be accidentally counterproductive in animal rights advocacy than in global health.
You don’t necessarily have to assume the impacts are normally distributed around 0 -- they could take a wide variety of distributions.
Yes, like I said: “or at least an average which has the same effect”. Whatever distribution you assume would be implausible. Either there’s just a few animal charities which are horrifically bad, like thousands of times worse than the best human charities are good… or the vast, vast majority of animal charities account for some kind of moderate harm.
Why not? It seems much easier to be accidentally counterproductive in animal rights advocacy than in global health.
Global health efforts do have controversial outcomes, and animal advocacy efforts are mostly advancing on mutually supporting fronts of changing ideas and behavior. I really don’t see where this seeming-ness comes from, especially not the degree of seeming-ness that would be needed to indicate that the variance of animal charities is ten or twenty or a hundred times greater than that of human charities.
I think this is an imperfect comparison since finding the most effective health intervention isn’t equivalent to finding the most effective animal charity; rather, finding the most effective health intervention is equivalent to finding the cheapest website to put up vegan ads. The true uncertainty over poverty relief—the way it interacts with governance systems and dictates long term development trends—necessarily needs to be included as well. And we don’t know much about which poverty charities are best under that metric. I don’t think it’s right to imply that it is a vague or optional “far future” concern, as it’s a concrete issue that can’t be ignored.
Moreover, why refer to the median animal intervention as the baseline? If we want the expected value of picking a charity at random, we’ll want to use the average. And if there are a few interventions which are 250x as good as the best poverty charities with most of them being ineffective, then that will strongly improve the estimate above what we would get if using the median.
Besides, we’re not totally blind about animal charities and we can still make some improvements over random charity selection. I think it’s reasonable to expect that we have at least a 1-in-250 chance of selecting the best animal charity. If so, then we should expect animal charity to be better than human charity on average.
Note that if this does turn out to be a close decision then the meat eater problem becomes significant again. The typical response to problems of meat consumption is that anyone who cares sufficiently about animals will donate to animal charities anyway; however, if the OP’s reasoning is correct then we now have to take it seriously into consideration.
The biggest takeaway here is that animal charity research is a really good cause.
“The biggest takeaway here is that animal charity research is a really good cause.”
I agree—if we’re highly certain we’ve found the best poverty interventions, or close to, and the best animal interventions might be ~250x as effective as the best poverty interventions, that should argue for increased animal charity research. But Peter is definitely right in that the higher robustness of existing human interventions (ignoring flow on effects like the poor meat eater problem) is a potentially valid reason to pick poverty interventions now over animal interventions now.
Yep, you’re right… I got confused about that… :/ Updated the post!
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Of course… and I don’t intend to ignore it; in fact I explicitly dedicate a section to it. But it’s hard to write a comprehensive article about that right now and I thought it would be good to get this thought out now with a bunch of caveats.
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It certainly is an imperfect comparison, but it’s not as imperfect as what you suggest. While there are many problems with DCP and while DCP does not take into account flow through effects, it at least takes into account whether there is reasonable first pass evidence that the intervention works, which we definitely don’t have for veg ads.
To oversimplify again, imagine there are three things we need to know:
1.) Does veg ads / water purification work? 2.) What is the cheapest way to run veg ads / water purification? What’s the cost-effectiveness? 3.) What effects do veg ads / water purification have in the long run? How large are these effects relative to the direct effects?
For water purification, we mostly have 1 and 2, whereas for veg ads we have some guesses at 2 and very little work on 1.
Of course, 3 may dominate and make work on 1 or 2 moot.
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Yes, I believe I account for that in the post. Likewise, DCP is not a purely random selection of global poverty charities.
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I’m not sure how that follows. Could you sketch that out for me?
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Yes, it seems pretty plausible that could be a crucial consideration for picking between global poverty and animal welfare interventions right now. However, I don’t think everyone who is concerned about the poor meat eater problem donates to animal charities, though I guess it depends on what you mean by cares sufficiently.
I know, I’m just saying that the method of presentation is sort of problematic because it implies that the future effects are a secondary or unnecessary concern. Some people think that it’s silly to worry about the effect of interventions on e.g. social systems 200 years from now, so they ignore far future effects. But the effects of poverty interventions upon social directions and governance within a 25-year timeframe are a different story and shouldn’t be lumped in with the former kinds of issues.
Well if the best animal charities are 250x better than the best human charities then a 1-in-250 chance of picking the best animal charity implies that it’s just as good as completely certain donations to the best human charity.
That would only be true if there were no charities of negative value that you might accidentally pick.
Assuming a reasonable prior about the effects of charities, if there are a few at 250x then there are also more at 200x, 150x and 100x that we are likely to fund, but the chance that we would accidentally pick a harmful charity when we think we are picking the best one is tiny if we know anything about charities. Even granting an assumption of being totally ignorant about charities and picking randomly, to argue that human charities are better you would have to assume that for every effort which is +250, there is an effort which is at least as bad as −249, and for every effort which is +200, there is an effort which is at least as bad as −199, or at least an average which has the same effect—with almost half of animal charities being net negative.
Note that in that case you would be arguing that the vast majority of the perceived superiority of animal charities is due simply to variance. That seems false because we have strong reasons to expect animal charities to be fundamentally more effective due to the neglectedness of the issue and the intensity of the problem, and I don’t see any prior reason to expect animal charities to be more variable in effectiveness than human charities.
You don’t necessarily have to assume the impacts are normally distributed around 0 -- they could take a wide variety of distributions.
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Why not? It seems much easier to be accidentally counterproductive in animal rights advocacy than in global health.
Yes, like I said: “or at least an average which has the same effect”. Whatever distribution you assume would be implausible. Either there’s just a few animal charities which are horrifically bad, like thousands of times worse than the best human charities are good… or the vast, vast majority of animal charities account for some kind of moderate harm.
Global health efforts do have controversial outcomes, and animal advocacy efforts are mostly advancing on mutually supporting fronts of changing ideas and behavior. I really don’t see where this seeming-ness comes from, especially not the degree of seeming-ness that would be needed to indicate that the variance of animal charities is ten or twenty or a hundred times greater than that of human charities.