I really like this type of reasoning—I think it allows for easier comparisons than the standard expected value assessments people have occasionally tried to do for systemic changes. A couple points, though.
1) I think very few systemic changes will affect 1B people. Typically I assume a campaign will be focussed on a particular country, and likely only a portion of the population of that country would be positively affected by change—meaning 10M or 100M people is probably much more typical. This shifts the cutoff cost to closer to around $1B to $10B, which seem plausibly in the same ballpark as GD.
2) Instead of asking “how much would this campaign cost to definitely succeed”, you could ask “how much would it cost to run a campaign that had at least a 50% chance of succeeding” and then divide the HALYS by 2. I’d imagine this is a much easier question to answer, as you’d never be certain that an effort at systemic change would be successful, but you could become confident that the chances were high.
I think very few systemic changes will affect 1B people.
I’m not making a serious claim about EV in any particular case, just suggesting an easier way to do the maths. However, if systemic change X affected A people for £B, and systemic change Y affected 1/2A people for £1/2B, then they would have the same expected value.
how much would this campaign cost to definitely succeed
I actually don’t do this (although now I wonder if I should have been clearer about this). I deliberately use the expected cost for it to succeed. The ‘definite success’ cost would nearly always be ludicrously high, because you can’t really guaranatee success. If you thought you could estimate the expected cost for 100% chance of success, you could obviously use the same reasoning to estimate the expected cost for a 50% chance of success.
‘I think very few systemic changes will affect 1B people’ . I agree entirely. We should not in any way close the door on the possibility of systemic interventions with wide-scale impact and it made me think:
‘Imagine a systemic change intervention could create a HALY/person of 1.00 for all scentient beings all the time’.
Noting:
1) all time less an implementation period accounting for ramp-up to maximum impact
2) is not constrained by arbitrary boundaries e.g. rich/poor, planetary, species, only by the limits of our consciousness
3) I’m considering a HALY of 1.00 to equate to the elimination of all avoidable suffering
This statement is logically consistent with the original sentence and only scaled up beyond the 1B people (so both numerically, within the our species, but also beyond our species).
So what does this mean exactly? Effectively we are imagining, expressed in another way, transitioning from a world of:
x-risk, nuclear catastophe, environmental degradation, compromised well being, family-oriented suffering, animal suffering, selfishness, displacement, conflict, fair economies, discrimination, compromised physical or mental health, poor nutrition, tobacco, pollution, corruption, poorly treated children, unsafe (e.g. safe roads) and irresponsible transportation, abuse, inadequate education, slavery, poverty, corporate or poltical irresponsibility, gridlock, equality, the ills of globalization, technology risk e.g. AI, to children), genocide,, terrorism, materialism, suicide etc
I really like this type of reasoning—I think it allows for easier comparisons than the standard expected value assessments people have occasionally tried to do for systemic changes. A couple points, though.
1) I think very few systemic changes will affect 1B people. Typically I assume a campaign will be focussed on a particular country, and likely only a portion of the population of that country would be positively affected by change—meaning 10M or 100M people is probably much more typical. This shifts the cutoff cost to closer to around $1B to $10B, which seem plausibly in the same ballpark as GD.
2) Instead of asking “how much would this campaign cost to definitely succeed”, you could ask “how much would it cost to run a campaign that had at least a 50% chance of succeeding” and then divide the HALYS by 2. I’d imagine this is a much easier question to answer, as you’d never be certain that an effort at systemic change would be successful, but you could become confident that the chances were high.
Thanks.
I’m not making a serious claim about EV in any particular case, just suggesting an easier way to do the maths. However, if systemic change X affected A people for £B, and systemic change Y affected 1/2A people for £1/2B, then they would have the same expected value.
I actually don’t do this (although now I wonder if I should have been clearer about this). I deliberately use the expected cost for it to succeed. The ‘definite success’ cost would nearly always be ludicrously high, because you can’t really guaranatee success. If you thought you could estimate the expected cost for 100% chance of success, you could obviously use the same reasoning to estimate the expected cost for a 50% chance of success.
‘I think very few systemic changes will affect 1B people’ . I agree entirely. We should not in any way close the door on the possibility of systemic interventions with wide-scale impact and it made me think:
‘Imagine a systemic change intervention could create a HALY/person of 1.00 for all scentient beings all the time’.
Noting:
1) all time less an implementation period accounting for ramp-up to maximum impact
2) is not constrained by arbitrary boundaries e.g. rich/poor, planetary, species, only by the limits of our consciousness
3) I’m considering a HALY of 1.00 to equate to the elimination of all avoidable suffering
This statement is logically consistent with the original sentence and only scaled up beyond the 1B people (so both numerically, within the our species, but also beyond our species).
So what does this mean exactly? Effectively we are imagining, expressed in another way, transitioning from a world of:
x-risk, nuclear catastophe, environmental degradation, compromised well being, family-oriented suffering, animal suffering, selfishness, displacement, conflict, fair economies, discrimination, compromised physical or mental health, poor nutrition, tobacco, pollution, corruption, poorly treated children, unsafe (e.g. safe roads) and irresponsible transportation, abuse, inadequate education, slavery, poverty, corporate or poltical irresponsibility, gridlock, equality, the ills of globalization, technology risk e.g. AI, to children), genocide,, terrorism, materialism, suicide etc
to living experiences characterized by:
happiness, sensation, creativity, caring, love, understanding, dynamicism, responsibility, progress, equality, fun, good health, truth, trust, consensus, sharing etc
Even if there were very few such interventions, any demonstrating:
a compelling, well-reasoned and evidence-based story
scalable to achieve the desired outcome
testable from a modest initial scale pilot
as such not massive $’s to test
This would have to be worth investing in. It would have to be as much of a no-brainer as buying malaria nets, frankly.