2. GiveWell. This seems like a good argument. I will think about it.
3. CN. If you read my post and not William’s response to it, I never accuse him of conflating CEO pay and overhead. He deflects my argument by writing about this. This is indeed a minor point.
I specifically accuse him of misquoting CN. As I wrote in other comments here, yes this might indeed be CN’s position and in the end, they would judge the doughnuts charity highly. I do not contend this point and never did. I only wrote that MacAskill (1) quotes CN, (2) makes conclusions based on this quote about CN, (3) the very page that MacAskill takes the quote from says that their position does not lead to these conclusions. And maybe CN is being completely hypocritical! This is not a point. It is still dishonest to misquote them.
4. PlayPumps: I feel like you’re kind of missing the point and I’m wondering if it might be some sort of a fundamental disagreement about unstated assumptions? I think that making dishonest argument that lead to the right conclusions is still dishonest. It seems that you (and many other EAs) feel that if the conclusion is correct, then the fact that the argument was dishonest is not so important (same as with CN). Here’s what you say:
But this is popular writing, and he really doesn’t have space to fully review all the ins and outs of PlayPumps.
And here’s what I wrote in that comment specifically about this argument:
All of what you say seems reasonable. If Doing Good Better was just a popular book—I would not care about all of this stuff. But this book serves as an introduction to Effective Altruism and the whole premise of the book is that it’s objective and uses evidence to arrive to conclusions, etc, and advocates and evidence-based approach to philanthropy. And, although I don’t consider myself EA, a lot of my friends do, and I care about the movement. …
So we cannot judge the book as we would any other popular book where the author has a narrative and peppers it with random studies they found. I’m not so bothered by the misrepresentations per se but by the hypocrisy. …
just in the Introduction, William first trashes PlayPumps (not saying a single good word about them and very liberally exaggerating his sources) and then praises deworming almost as a salvation. And again, this is entirely natural for a popular book—but not for a book that introduces Effective Altruism and evidence-based approach to philanthropy. …
3. MacAskill:
According to the UNICEF report, children sometimes fell off and broke limbs, and some vomited from the spinning. [emphasis mine]
UNICEF report:
Some users reported that children had fallen off and been injured with bruises and cuts, and in one case a child fractured their arm.[emphasis mine]
This is a very good example of a point I’m making—of course a popular book will exaggerate things like that. But again—not a book that advocates an even-handed, evidence-based approach to philanthropy.
And in your conclusion you write:
Except perhaps the deworming example, none of these inaccuracies, if corrected, would change anything important about the conclusions of the book.
Yes! I mostly agree with this! But (1) these are not just inaccuracies. I point out misrepresentations. (2) I believe that making dishonest arguments that advance the right conclusions is dishonest.
Do I understand you correctly that you disagree with me on point (2)?
First, on honesty. As I said above, I completely agree with you on honesty: “bad arguments for a good conclusion are not justified.” This is one of my (and I’d say the EA community as a whole) strongest values. Arguments are not soldiers, their only value is in their own truth. SSC’s In Favor of Niceness, Community, and Civilization sums up my views very well. I’m glad we’re after the same goal.
That said, in popular writing, it’s impossible to reflect the true complexity of what’s being described. So the goal is to simplify as much as possible, while losing as little truth as possible. If someone simplifies in a way that’s importantly misleading, that’s an important failure and should be condemned. But the more I dig into each of these arguments, the more I’m convinced MacAskill is doing a very good job maintaining truth while simplifying.
Charity Navigator. MacAskill says “One popular way of evaluating a charity is to look at financial information regarding how the charity spends its money.” He says that CN takes this approach, and then quotes CN saying that many of the best charities spend 25% or less on overhead. You say this is a misquote, because CN later says that high overhead can be OK if balanced by other indicators of financial health. CN says they like to see charities “that are able to grow their revenue at least at the rate of inflation, that continue to invest in their programs and that have some money saved for a rainy day.”
I see absolutely no misrepresentation here. MacAskill says CN evaluates based on financials such as overhead pay, and quotes CN saying that. He never says that CN only looks at overhead pay, neglecting other financials. In fact, his quote of CN says that overhead indicator is a “strong indicator” in “most” charities, which nobody would interpret as claiming that CN literally only evaluates overhead. The fact that CN does in fact care about financials other than overhead is abundantly clear when reading MacAskill’s summary. MacAskill perfectly represents their view. I doubt someone from CN would ever take issue with that first paragraph.
Playpumps. Charge by charge: 1. After checking out both the UN and SKAT reports, I agree with MacAskill: they’re “damning”. 2. MacAskill says “But in order to pump water, PlayPumps need constant force, and children playing on them would quickly get exhausted.” You quote UNICEF saying “Some primary school children complained of becoming tired very quickly after pushing the pump, particularly as additional torque is required with each rotation to commence the upstroke of the piston.” Look at a video of one in motion, it’s clear that it spins easy for a little while but also constantly requires new force. No misrepresentation. 3. “Children sometimes fell off and broke limbs” is an exaggeration. One child fractured their arm, not multiple. MacAskill misrepresented the number of injuries. 4. The reporter said that PlayPump requires 27 hours of pumping a day in order to meet its ambition of supplying 15 liters a day to 10 million people using 4000 PlayPumps. Assuming one PlayPump per village, that means a village of 2500 would require 27 hours a day of PlayPump to meet their water needs. The only editorializing MacAskill does is call a village of 2500 “typical”. No misrepresentation. 5. MacAskill that PlayPumps often replaced old pumps. You correctly point out that in most countries, that did not happen. Bottom line: You’re right that (i) MacAskill exaggerates the number of children who broke bones; it was one reported case, not multiple; and (ii) MacAskill incorrectly implies that PlayPumps often replaced old pumps, when in fact they rarely did.
Again, thank you for continuing to engage in this in a fair and receptive way. But after spending a lot of time looking into this, I’m less convinced than I ever was of your argument. You have four good points: (i) MacAskill should’ve used other deworming evidence; (ii) MacAskill exaggerated the number of children who broke bones on PlayPumps; (iii) MacAskill incorrectly implies that PlayPumps often replaced old pumps, when in fact they rarely did; (iv) MacAskill incorrectly reported the question asked by a survey on ethical companies. You might have a good point with the John Bunker DALY estimates, but I haven’t looked into it enough.
Framed in the right way, these four points would be helpful, useful feedback for MacAskill. Four slips in 200 pages seems impressively good, but MacAskill surely would have promptly updated his Errata page, and that would be that. Nothing significant whatsoever about the book would’ve changed. But because they were framed as “William MacAskill is a liar”, nobody else has been willing to engage your points, lest they legitimize clearly unfair criticism. Yes, he didn’t make the best response to your points, but to be frank, they were quite unorganized and hard to follow—it’s taken me upwards of 5 hours in sum to get to the bottom of your claims.
At this point, I really don’t think you can justifiably continue to hold your either of your positions: that DGB is significantly inaccurate, or that MacAskill is dishonest. I really do believe that you’re in this in good faith, and that your main error (save the ad hominem attack, likely a judgement error) was in not getting to the bottom of these questions. But now the questions feel very well resolved. Unless the four issues listed above constitute systemic inaccuracy, I really don’t see an argument for it.
Sincerely, thank you for engaging, and if you find these arguments correct, I hope you’ll uphold our value of honesty and apologize to MacAskill for the ad hominem attacks, as well as give him a kinder, more accurate explanation of his inaccuracies. I hope I’ve helped.
Thank you a ton for the time and effort you put into this. I find myself disagreeing with you, but this may reflect my investment in my arguments. I will write to you later, once I reflect on this further.
PlayPumps: I don’t agree with your assessment of points 1, 2, 4.
At this point, I really don’t think you can justifiably continue to hold your either of your positions: that DGB is significantly inaccurate, or that MacAskill is dishonest. I really do believe that you’re in this in good faith, and that your main error (save the ad hominem attack, likely a judgement error) was in not getting to the bottom of these questions. But now the questions feel very well resolved. Unless the four issues listed above constitute systemic inaccuracy, I really don’t see an argument for it.
Sincerely, thank you for engaging, and if you find these arguments correct, I hope you’ll uphold our value of honesty and apologize to MacAskill for the ad hominem attacks, as well as give him a kinder, more accurate explanation of his inaccuracies. I hope I’ve helped.
I have already apologized to MacAskill for the first, even harsher, version of the post. I will certainly apologize to him, if I conclude that the arguments he made were not made in bad faith, but at this point I find that my central point stands.
As I wrote in another comment, thank you for your time and I will let you know later about my conclusions. I will likely rewrite the post after this.
Thank you for a thoughtful response.
1. Deworming. Seems fair.
2. GiveWell. This seems like a good argument. I will think about it.
3. CN. If you read my post and not William’s response to it, I never accuse him of conflating CEO pay and overhead. He deflects my argument by writing about this. This is indeed a minor point.
I specifically accuse him of misquoting CN. As I wrote in other comments here, yes this might indeed be CN’s position and in the end, they would judge the doughnuts charity highly. I do not contend this point and never did. I only wrote that MacAskill (1) quotes CN, (2) makes conclusions based on this quote about CN, (3) the very page that MacAskill takes the quote from says that their position does not lead to these conclusions. And maybe CN is being completely hypocritical! This is not a point. It is still dishonest to misquote them.
4. PlayPumps: I feel like you’re kind of missing the point and I’m wondering if it might be some sort of a fundamental disagreement about unstated assumptions? I think that making dishonest argument that lead to the right conclusions is still dishonest. It seems that you (and many other EAs) feel that if the conclusion is correct, then the fact that the argument was dishonest is not so important (same as with CN). Here’s what you say:
And here’s what I wrote in that comment specifically about this argument:
And in your conclusion you write:
Yes! I mostly agree with this! But (1) these are not just inaccuracies. I point out misrepresentations. (2) I believe that making dishonest arguments that advance the right conclusions is dishonest.
Do I understand you correctly that you disagree with me on point (2)?
First, on honesty. As I said above, I completely agree with you on honesty: “bad arguments for a good conclusion are not justified.” This is one of my (and I’d say the EA community as a whole) strongest values. Arguments are not soldiers, their only value is in their own truth. SSC’s In Favor of Niceness, Community, and Civilization sums up my views very well. I’m glad we’re after the same goal.
That said, in popular writing, it’s impossible to reflect the true complexity of what’s being described. So the goal is to simplify as much as possible, while losing as little truth as possible. If someone simplifies in a way that’s importantly misleading, that’s an important failure and should be condemned. But the more I dig into each of these arguments, the more I’m convinced MacAskill is doing a very good job maintaining truth while simplifying.
Charity Navigator. MacAskill says “One popular way of evaluating a charity is to look at financial information regarding how the charity spends its money.” He says that CN takes this approach, and then quotes CN saying that many of the best charities spend 25% or less on overhead. You say this is a misquote, because CN later says that high overhead can be OK if balanced by other indicators of financial health. CN says they like to see charities “that are able to grow their revenue at least at the rate of inflation, that continue to invest in their programs and that have some money saved for a rainy day.”
I see absolutely no misrepresentation here. MacAskill says CN evaluates based on financials such as overhead pay, and quotes CN saying that. He never says that CN only looks at overhead pay, neglecting other financials. In fact, his quote of CN says that overhead indicator is a “strong indicator” in “most” charities, which nobody would interpret as claiming that CN literally only evaluates overhead. The fact that CN does in fact care about financials other than overhead is abundantly clear when reading MacAskill’s summary. MacAskill perfectly represents their view. I doubt someone from CN would ever take issue with that first paragraph.
Playpumps. Charge by charge: 1. After checking out both the UN and SKAT reports, I agree with MacAskill: they’re “damning”. 2. MacAskill says “But in order to pump water, PlayPumps need constant force, and children playing on them would quickly get exhausted.” You quote UNICEF saying “Some primary school children complained of becoming tired very quickly after pushing the pump, particularly as additional torque is required with each rotation to commence the upstroke of the piston.” Look at a video of one in motion, it’s clear that it spins easy for a little while but also constantly requires new force. No misrepresentation. 3. “Children sometimes fell off and broke limbs” is an exaggeration. One child fractured their arm, not multiple. MacAskill misrepresented the number of injuries. 4. The reporter said that PlayPump requires 27 hours of pumping a day in order to meet its ambition of supplying 15 liters a day to 10 million people using 4000 PlayPumps. Assuming one PlayPump per village, that means a village of 2500 would require 27 hours a day of PlayPump to meet their water needs. The only editorializing MacAskill does is call a village of 2500 “typical”. No misrepresentation. 5. MacAskill that PlayPumps often replaced old pumps. You correctly point out that in most countries, that did not happen. Bottom line: You’re right that (i) MacAskill exaggerates the number of children who broke bones; it was one reported case, not multiple; and (ii) MacAskill incorrectly implies that PlayPumps often replaced old pumps, when in fact they rarely did.
Again, thank you for continuing to engage in this in a fair and receptive way. But after spending a lot of time looking into this, I’m less convinced than I ever was of your argument. You have four good points: (i) MacAskill should’ve used other deworming evidence; (ii) MacAskill exaggerated the number of children who broke bones on PlayPumps; (iii) MacAskill incorrectly implies that PlayPumps often replaced old pumps, when in fact they rarely did; (iv) MacAskill incorrectly reported the question asked by a survey on ethical companies. You might have a good point with the John Bunker DALY estimates, but I haven’t looked into it enough.
Framed in the right way, these four points would be helpful, useful feedback for MacAskill. Four slips in 200 pages seems impressively good, but MacAskill surely would have promptly updated his Errata page, and that would be that. Nothing significant whatsoever about the book would’ve changed. But because they were framed as “William MacAskill is a liar”, nobody else has been willing to engage your points, lest they legitimize clearly unfair criticism. Yes, he didn’t make the best response to your points, but to be frank, they were quite unorganized and hard to follow—it’s taken me upwards of 5 hours in sum to get to the bottom of your claims.
At this point, I really don’t think you can justifiably continue to hold your either of your positions: that DGB is significantly inaccurate, or that MacAskill is dishonest. I really do believe that you’re in this in good faith, and that your main error (save the ad hominem attack, likely a judgement error) was in not getting to the bottom of these questions. But now the questions feel very well resolved. Unless the four issues listed above constitute systemic inaccuracy, I really don’t see an argument for it.
Sincerely, thank you for engaging, and if you find these arguments correct, I hope you’ll uphold our value of honesty and apologize to MacAskill for the ad hominem attacks, as well as give him a kinder, more accurate explanation of his inaccuracies. I hope I’ve helped.
Thank you a ton for the time and effort you put into this. I find myself disagreeing with you, but this may reflect my investment in my arguments. I will write to you later, once I reflect on this further.
CN: I don’t agree with you
PlayPumps: I don’t agree with your assessment of points 1, 2, 4.
I have already apologized to MacAskill for the first, even harsher, version of the post. I will certainly apologize to him, if I conclude that the arguments he made were not made in bad faith, but at this point I find that my central point stands.
As I wrote in another comment, thank you for your time and I will let you know later about my conclusions. I will likely rewrite the post after this.