Thanks for this, I found it interesting. Many of your experiences resonate with mine, in charge of a charitable organisation dealing with many volunteers whose motivations seemed unclear or dubious. I found it difficult to convert people to effective donating or to get them excited about effective altruism, even though those I was working with were highly intelligent, rational and mostly vibrant people.
There is certainly something to be said for trying to influence charities towards more effective interventions, rather than focusing on cause prioritisation. Often charities don’t focus on this simply because they lack the tools to measure the effectiveness of interventions, not because they lack resources, have a narrow mission statement or don’t think that impact is important. At the moment, I am working on a project to automate randomised control trials to make them more affordable for charities wanting to evaluate their impact in a more rigorous way.
Overall I think the realist perspective you have outlined here quite refreshing. Charities do, and will continue to, work in areas that are not typically regarded as the most impactful by EA organisations. People are, and will continue to be, motivated strongly by their emotions. What can we do within those parameters to make things more effective?
As you say, people are and will be driven by emotion for the forseeable future. Therefore there will always be demand to give to charities which cater to this need, so their will always be charities that target relatively ineffective solutions. Within that though, I think charities understand that they have some scope for discretion as to how exactly to spend their budget. I’d be hopeful by nudging the right people at the right time, and by making EA a thing that people have heard about, we can have a positive impact on effectiveness.
Thanks for this, I found it interesting. Many of your experiences resonate with mine, in charge of a charitable organisation dealing with many volunteers whose motivations seemed unclear or dubious. I found it difficult to convert people to effective donating or to get them excited about effective altruism, even though those I was working with were highly intelligent, rational and mostly vibrant people.
There is certainly something to be said for trying to influence charities towards more effective interventions, rather than focusing on cause prioritisation. Often charities don’t focus on this simply because they lack the tools to measure the effectiveness of interventions, not because they lack resources, have a narrow mission statement or don’t think that impact is important. At the moment, I am working on a project to automate randomised control trials to make them more affordable for charities wanting to evaluate their impact in a more rigorous way.
Overall I think the realist perspective you have outlined here quite refreshing. Charities do, and will continue to, work in areas that are not typically regarded as the most impactful by EA organisations. People are, and will continue to be, motivated strongly by their emotions. What can we do within those parameters to make things more effective?
How far along is your automation of randomized control trials now? Would organizations be able to access your work at this time?
As you say, people are and will be driven by emotion for the forseeable future. Therefore there will always be demand to give to charities which cater to this need, so their will always be charities that target relatively ineffective solutions. Within that though, I think charities understand that they have some scope for discretion as to how exactly to spend their budget. I’d be hopeful by nudging the right people at the right time, and by making EA a thing that people have heard about, we can have a positive impact on effectiveness.