a post, a few pages long, with a perspective about New Science that point out things that are useful and interesting would certainly would be well received
Okay that’s helpful to hear.
A lot of this question is inspired by the recent Charter Cities debate. For context:
Charter Cities Institute released a short paper a while back arguing that it could be as good as top GiveWell charities
Rethink Priorities more recently shared a longer report, concluding that it was likely not as good as GiveWell charities
Mark Lutter (who runs CCI) replied, arguing that more optimistic model parameters are reasonable
This all makes sense within the GiveWell-style of philanthropy where we’re making cost-effectiveness estimates on short-run goods like increased consumption or decreased mortality.
But in the HoldenOpenPhil model, where we’re debating things like:
Is this is an important cause area
Does the organization seem well run
Are there trusted expert advisors who endorse the organization
I’m unclear on what kind of EA Forum post is:
Appropriate (meaning it’s not just shilling for a charity, feels like substantial analysis, not just gossip over which organizations and causes are exciting or not among certain groups)
Useful (meaning it carries some weight w/r/t to grant decisions by funders, specifically HoldenOpenPhil in this case, not necessarily that it’s decisive or sufficient)
A lot of this question is inspired by the recent Charter Cities debate...This all makes sense within the GiveWell-style of philanthropy where we’re making cost-effectiveness estimates on short-run goods like increased consumption or decreased mortality.
But isn’t the GiveWell-style philanthropy exactly not applicable for your example of charter cities?
My sense is that the case for charter cities has some macro/systems process that is hard to measure (and that is why it is only now a new cause area and why the debate exists).
I specifically didn’t want to pull out examples, but if it’s helpful here’s another example of a debate for an intervention that relies on difficult to measure outcomes and involves, hard to untangle, divergent worldviews between the respective proponents.
(This is somewhat of a tangent but honestly, your important question is inherently complex and there seems to be a lot of things going on, so clarity from smoothing out some of the points seems valuable.)
But in the HoldenOpenPhil model, where we’re debating things like:
Is this is an important cause area
Does the organization seem well run
Are there trusted expert advisors who endorse the organization
I don’t understand why my answer in the previous post above, or these debates aren’t object level responses to how you could discuss the value of these interventions.
I’m worried I’m talking past you and not being helpful.
Now, trying more vigorously / speculatively here:
Maybe one answer is that you are right, it is hard to influence direct granting—furthermore, this means that directly influencing granting is not what we should be focused on in the forum.
At the risk of being prescriptive (which I dislike) I think this is a reasonable attitude on the forum, in the sense that “policing grants” or something, should be a very low priority for organic reasons for most people, and instead learning/communicating and a “scout mindset” is ultimately more productive. But such discussion cannot be proscribed and even a tacit norm against them would be bad.
Maybe you mean that this level of difficulty is “wrong” in some sense. For example, we should respond by paying special, unique attention to the HOP grants or expect them to be communicated and discussed actively. This seems not implausible.
I’m unclear on what kind of EA Forum post is:
Appropriate (meaning it’s not just shilling for a charity, feels like substantial analysis, not just gossip over which organizations and causes are exciting or not among certain groups)
Useful (meaning it carries some weight w/r/t to grant decisions by funders, specifically HoldenOpenPhil in this case, not necessarily that it’s decisive or sufficient)
I could see how HOP areas are harder but as in my first comment, I think it’s inherently hard for anyone to criticize any well researched grant, especially if you account for social factors, as you do.
However, I think there are ways to indicate comfort or discomfort with grants or even major EA orgs.
There are specific examples of this, where people have individually started posts that were influential and drew enormous attention to their concerns.
If you go to the all posts page and select “Yearly” and “Top”, you will find an remarkable example in the top 10 for 2021 (please do not link this post in any reply).
I’m pretty sure that some of these posts do influence Open Phil (but maybe not quite in the way we want).
Again, I choose a negative example because it’s harder.
There’s abundant posts that promote or talk about their work in a cause. In some sense. all blog posts from orgs promote their orgs and pretty much any such honest writing from an EA is welcome.
I think there’s a causal chain where this can influence Open Phil or specific grant makers.
By the way, I’m 90% sure that two or more Open Phil members will read/has read your post already.
Okay that’s helpful to hear.
A lot of this question is inspired by the recent Charter Cities debate. For context:
Charter Cities Institute released a short paper a while back arguing that it could be as good as top GiveWell charities
Rethink Priorities more recently shared a longer report, concluding that it was likely not as good as GiveWell charities
Mark Lutter (who runs CCI) replied, arguing that more optimistic model parameters are reasonable
This all makes sense within the GiveWell-style of philanthropy where we’re making cost-effectiveness estimates on short-run goods like increased consumption or decreased mortality.
But in the HoldenOpenPhil model, where we’re debating things like:
Is this is an important cause area
Does the organization seem well run
Are there trusted expert advisors who endorse the organization
I’m unclear on what kind of EA Forum post is:
Appropriate (meaning it’s not just shilling for a charity, feels like substantial analysis, not just gossip over which organizations and causes are exciting or not among certain groups)
Useful (meaning it carries some weight w/r/t to grant decisions by funders, specifically HoldenOpenPhil in this case, not necessarily that it’s decisive or sufficient)
But isn’t the GiveWell-style philanthropy exactly not applicable for your example of charter cities?
My sense is that the case for charter cities has some macro/systems process that is hard to measure (and that is why it is only now a new cause area and why the debate exists).
I specifically didn’t want to pull out examples, but if it’s helpful here’s another example of a debate for an intervention that relies on difficult to measure outcomes and involves, hard to untangle, divergent worldviews between the respective proponents.
(This is somewhat of a tangent but honestly, your important question is inherently complex and there seems to be a lot of things going on, so clarity from smoothing out some of the points seems valuable.)
I don’t understand why my answer in the previous post above, or these debates aren’t object level responses to how you could discuss the value of these interventions.
I’m worried I’m talking past you and not being helpful.
Now, trying more vigorously / speculatively here:
Maybe one answer is that you are right, it is hard to influence direct granting—furthermore, this means that directly influencing granting is not what we should be focused on in the forum.
At the risk of being prescriptive (which I dislike) I think this is a reasonable attitude on the forum, in the sense that “policing grants” or something, should be a very low priority for organic reasons for most people, and instead learning/communicating and a “scout mindset” is ultimately more productive. But such discussion cannot be proscribed and even a tacit norm against them would be bad.
Maybe you mean that this level of difficulty is “wrong” in some sense. For example, we should respond by paying special, unique attention to the HOP grants or expect them to be communicated and discussed actively. This seems not implausible.
I could see how HOP areas are harder but as in my first comment, I think it’s inherently hard for anyone to criticize any well researched grant, especially if you account for social factors, as you do.
However, I think there are ways to indicate comfort or discomfort with grants or even major EA orgs.
There are specific examples of this, where people have individually started posts that were influential and drew enormous attention to their concerns.
If you go to the all posts page and select “Yearly” and “Top”, you will find an remarkable example in the top 10 for 2021 (please do not link this post in any reply).
I’m pretty sure that some of these posts do influence Open Phil (but maybe not quite in the way we want).
Again, I choose a negative example because it’s harder.
There’s abundant posts that promote or talk about their work in a cause. In some sense. all blog posts from orgs promote their orgs and pretty much any such honest writing from an EA is welcome.
I think there’s a causal chain where this can influence Open Phil or specific grant makers.
By the way, I’m 90% sure that two or more Open Phil members will read/has read your post already.