EA cause areas now include quite a bit of policy advocacy:
Open Phil supports Farm Animal Welfare, Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy, Immigration Policy, and Land Use Reform (edit: and until recently, Criminal Justice Reform) in the US.
In each case, I think EA emphasizes estimating the impact in terms of human outcomes like lives saved. Successful Supreme Court cases could be a useful intermediate outcome, but ultimately I’d want to know something like the impact of the average case on well-being, as well as the likelihood of cases going the other way in the absence of funding the Institute for Justice. Similarly, an EA perspective on the Committee on the Present Danger: China could try to estimate the impact of each dollar donated on the likelihood that the US boycotts the Olympics, and then the impact of that boycott on China’s human rights policies, and then the impact of those policies on human well-being; there could also be an existential risk angle if it affects the likelihood of war. This quantification is inherently uncertain, but starting points with Bayesian reasoning and help from forums like these can typically uncover the order of magnitude, which we can use to compare it against other interventions.
[W]e think the top global aid charities recommended by GiveWell (which we used to be part of and remain closely affiliated with) present an opportunity to give away large amounts of money at higher cost-effectiveness than we can achieve in many programs, including CJR, that seek to benefit citizens of wealthy countries.
-”In each case, I think EA emphasizes estimating the impact in terms of human outcomes like lives saved. Successful Supreme Court cases could be a useful intermediate outcome, but ultimately I’d want to know something like the impact of the average case on well-being, as well as the likelihood of cases going the other way in the absence of funding the Institute for Justice.”
But a Supreme Court case could have potentially infinite effects in the future, since it will be used as precedent for further cases etc. Is it really possible to model this? If it is not possible, then is it possible that IJ is the most effective charity, even though it cannot be analyzed under an EA framework?
EA cause areas now include quite a bit of policy advocacy:
Open Phil supports Farm Animal Welfare, Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy, Immigration Policy, and Land Use Reform (edit: and until recently, Criminal Justice Reform) in the US.
The Founders Pledge Climate Fund supports policy advocacy; they estimate that their top charity, the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, averts a ton of CO2 for $0.12 through policy.
Notable EAs like SBF have given to political campaigns like Biden’s, and Kyle Bogosian has applied EA-style rigor to rank candidates in terms of their impact on various policy areas at happinesspolitics.org.
In each case, I think EA emphasizes estimating the impact in terms of human outcomes like lives saved. Successful Supreme Court cases could be a useful intermediate outcome, but ultimately I’d want to know something like the impact of the average case on well-being, as well as the likelihood of cases going the other way in the absence of funding the Institute for Justice. Similarly, an EA perspective on the Committee on the Present Danger: China could try to estimate the impact of each dollar donated on the likelihood that the US boycotts the Olympics, and then the impact of that boycott on China’s human rights policies, and then the impact of those policies on human well-being; there could also be an existential risk angle if it affects the likelihood of war. This quantification is inherently uncertain, but starting points with Bayesian reasoning and help from forums like these can typically uncover the order of magnitude, which we can use to compare it against other interventions.
Historically yes, but not any more:
-”In each case, I think EA emphasizes estimating the impact in terms of human outcomes like lives saved. Successful Supreme Court cases could be a useful intermediate outcome, but ultimately I’d want to know something like the impact of the average case on well-being, as well as the likelihood of cases going the other way in the absence of funding the Institute for Justice.”
But a Supreme Court case could have potentially infinite effects in the future, since it will be used as precedent for further cases etc. Is it really possible to model this? If it is not possible, then is it possible that IJ is the most effective charity, even though it cannot be analyzed under an EA framework?