I think there is a danger in overlooking the small scale which sometimes cannot be readily duplicated or enlarged. A family friend, with lots of help from my mom, started an orphanage and school in Zambia. Projects like that are highly dependent on the individuals involved, their priorities, and their honesty. There is not another Kathi in the world and I would expect nearly everyone else to be less effective at trying to accomplish what she has done. Now, if you just want to count bodies, her project is not the most effective at saving lives per dollar. However, just as in nature, one must consider quality as well as quantity. Three of her orphaned formerly street children were in the top five on the national test for admission to high school the first year any of her kids took it. Her goal is to get as many through university as possible, but she also teaches farming and sewing and other skills. She could save more lives, but she wants to give Zambia the educated population it needs to thrive on its own.
A friend made the argument to me yesterday that large organizations have high costs to finding such investments, since people may try to scam them or just compete for their funding by exaggerating. As an individual, who already has knowledge of these small scale circumstances, you can spend time and money on such small projects without facing similar risks. This might be a comparative advantage for small donors who are good at evaluating persons working on such projects.
I agree that quality matters, but it does help accountability for progress to be measurable. Do you know if there are any proposed improvements to measurements like QALYs? If the EA movement proposed a new such measurement, backed by good data, it might be a very valuable contribution. Depression is now causing a very high DALY burden, so it seems plausible that the most effective interventions may be in reducing depression, rather than saving lives.
Yes. But its about how easy something is to treat also?
Small minnows definitely have some advantages (small is beautiful has a lot of arguments in this direction)
The issues is that we haven’t found little charities that are making a difference as well / cheaply as SCI/AMF.
I think that actually, scale is very important unless you’re doing knowledge based stuff. Economies of scale exist, and are often more important than the kinds of advantages small players have?
I think there is a danger in overlooking the small scale which sometimes cannot be readily duplicated or enlarged. A family friend, with lots of help from my mom, started an orphanage and school in Zambia. Projects like that are highly dependent on the individuals involved, their priorities, and their honesty. There is not another Kathi in the world and I would expect nearly everyone else to be less effective at trying to accomplish what she has done. Now, if you just want to count bodies, her project is not the most effective at saving lives per dollar. However, just as in nature, one must consider quality as well as quantity. Three of her orphaned formerly street children were in the top five on the national test for admission to high school the first year any of her kids took it. Her goal is to get as many through university as possible, but she also teaches farming and sewing and other skills. She could save more lives, but she wants to give Zambia the educated population it needs to thrive on its own.
A friend made the argument to me yesterday that large organizations have high costs to finding such investments, since people may try to scam them or just compete for their funding by exaggerating. As an individual, who already has knowledge of these small scale circumstances, you can spend time and money on such small projects without facing similar risks. This might be a comparative advantage for small donors who are good at evaluating persons working on such projects.
I agree that quality matters, but it does help accountability for progress to be measurable. Do you know if there are any proposed improvements to measurements like QALYs? If the EA movement proposed a new such measurement, backed by good data, it might be a very valuable contribution. Depression is now causing a very high DALY burden, so it seems plausible that the most effective interventions may be in reducing depression, rather than saving lives.
Yes. But its about how easy something is to treat also?
Small minnows definitely have some advantages (small is beautiful has a lot of arguments in this direction)
The issues is that we haven’t found little charities that are making a difference as well / cheaply as SCI/AMF.
I think that actually, scale is very important unless you’re doing knowledge based stuff. Economies of scale exist, and are often more important than the kinds of advantages small players have?