Regarding increasing marginal returns (IMR), which seems to be the primary contribution of this paper and not obviously addressed by replies to other types of systemic change objections:
Perhaps rather than ‘Are IMR commonly found in cause areas?‘, I would ask ‘where are IMR found?’ and, for the purposes of testing the critique, ‘in which cases are relevant actors not already aware of those IMR?’ This is because I expect the prevalence of IMR to vary substantially between areas. (I see that you also call for concrete examples in your paper.) Some examples, sorted from strategic to individual decision-making:
the methodology you point to is largely about high-level cause prioritisation, and
the neglectedness criterion works if there are roughly† logarithmic diminishing marginal returns within causes,
the IMR objection does not apply to them.
IMR when starting new projects: in their 2011 post on why they are not using donation matching, GiveWell discusses ‘coordination matching’, where the project only goes ahead if sufficient funds are committed (like Kickstarter), as a legitimate form of donation matching. [Minor: this may be IMR only with respect to money ultimately committed. A large donor making a partial, initial commitment may in fact have outsized impact relative to later funders due to the earlier donor causing later donors to act.]
Of course, my examples of IMR are drawn from people who helped create the effective altruism community, so they help with ‘where are IMR found?’ but not with identifying points where IMR are underappreciated by the community. It certainly seems possible that there are issues I am unaware of. I see that in your paper you mention ‘the problem of competition between NGOs and states’ as a problem for which the solution which might have IMR. To rehash an old counterargument, I would guess that this is not really a conflict, in that substantially reducing disease prevalence (the relevant comparable on the scale of the funding required for other mass empowerment efforts) is hugely empowering. However, this is an off-the-cuff comment. I also know little about the example of whether corporate campaigns accelerate or decelerate abolition, but I believe that this was and probably still is an active debate among effectiveness-focused animal advocates.
† In fact, I am a little worried that the logarithmic assumption is sufficiently wrong to cause problems, while I am confident that there is DMR in general at this level.
Regarding increasing marginal returns (IMR), which seems to be the primary contribution of this paper and not obviously addressed by replies to other types of systemic change objections:
Perhaps rather than ‘Are IMR commonly found in cause areas?‘, I would ask ‘where are IMR found?’ and, for the purposes of testing the critique, ‘in which cases are relevant actors not already aware of those IMR?’ This is because I expect the prevalence of IMR to vary substantially between areas. (I see that you also call for concrete examples in your paper.) Some examples, sorted from strategic to individual decision-making:
DMR at a high level within causes: you may have seen this list of reasons to expect DMR when looking at a cause area at a sufficiently high level. I would argue that since
the methodology you point to is largely about high-level cause prioritisation, and
the neglectedness criterion works if there are roughly† logarithmic diminishing marginal returns within causes,
the IMR objection does not apply to them.
IMR when starting new projects: in their 2011 post on why they are not using donation matching, GiveWell discusses ‘coordination matching’, where the project only goes ahead if sufficient funds are committed (like Kickstarter), as a legitimate form of donation matching. [Minor: this may be IMR only with respect to money ultimately committed. A large donor making a partial, initial commitment may in fact have outsized impact relative to later funders due to the earlier donor causing later donors to act.]
IMR when coordinating individual careers: this section of William MacAskill’s 2017 EAGx Berlin talk encourages more attention to coordinated action. This includes things closely analogous to the coordination games you discuss in the paper, in which one person switching to their comparative advantage is a cost, but two people switching is a gain. I would guess that you would also like 80,000 Hours’ writing on comparative advantage and other coordination concepts.
Of course, my examples of IMR are drawn from people who helped create the effective altruism community, so they help with ‘where are IMR found?’ but not with identifying points where IMR are underappreciated by the community. It certainly seems possible that there are issues I am unaware of. I see that in your paper you mention ‘the problem of competition between NGOs and states’ as a problem for which the solution which might have IMR. To rehash an old counterargument, I would guess that this is not really a conflict, in that substantially reducing disease prevalence (the relevant comparable on the scale of the funding required for other mass empowerment efforts) is hugely empowering. However, this is an off-the-cuff comment. I also know little about the example of whether corporate campaigns accelerate or decelerate abolition, but I believe that this was and probably still is an active debate among effectiveness-focused animal advocates.
† In fact, I am a little worried that the logarithmic assumption is sufficiently wrong to cause problems, while I am confident that there is DMR in general at this level.