Consider, for example, that the most effective global poverty charities are about 100 to 1000 times more effective than the most effective charities in other popular sectors of giving.
Citation please. I believe this claim is false. E.g. one of the most popular foundation grant areas is life sciences research. This GiveWell post ballparks generic cancer research (a relatively very heavily funded field that has gotten relatively weak results) as being less than 100x, and suggests that particularly effective biomedical research could be orders of magnitude more effective than that.
I would posit that SCI probably does 10,000 to a million times more good than the best arts charity.
I say that this is quite unlikely. GiveWell estimates the benefits of SCI as about 5-10x the direct benefits of cash transfers. Cash transfers might give a 30x multiplier, but not 100x, I think.
And I am confident that the best arts projects generate more benefits for the beneficiaries than simply handing over the cash would. Consider something like loosening the Mickey Mouse copyright stranglehold and releasing old works into the public domain. The consumer surplus from such increased access to and creation of art could be quite large relative to the investment.
There is also the intersection of art and other important causes and issues. The arts (especially mass media like film-making) have played important roles in drawing attention to a variety of problems, and such art can be specifically supported.
From a cause-neutral point of view these are unlikely to be the very top priorities but the numbers you give above are not plausible to me.
People frequently behave as though EA is an ideology. I believe they ought not behave this way; we will do more good if we focus on doing good and not on the dogmas that inevitably arise out of the EA community. I myself am guilty of this: when responding to OP, I originally wanted to “defend my tribe” and say OP is bad and EA is good. I re-wrote my comment several times to focus on the fact that OP is actually good and saying valuable things, and to formulate a constructive and cooperative comment, instead of just defending my tribe. I believe this is a good thing and I ought to try to do this more often, and I can probably do better.
People often behave as though EA is an ideology, not a question; this is generally harmful.
I can probably mitigate the effects of (1) by reminding people to think of EA as a question, not an ideology; which is why I did so in my previous comment.
If we have more modest numbers we might get to a similar conclusion though.
e.g. suppose the distribution of cost-benefit ratios looks like this:
Typical US charity: 1
Good US charity: 10
Typical international charity: 20
GiveDirectly: 30
Biomedical research, US policy advocacy: 100
Best international charities (i.e. AMF): 300
Good meta-charity, xrisk, advocacy etc: 1500+
Then, moving someone from a typical US focused charity to a good one produces an extra 9 units of impact per dollar; whereas moving them to the best international charity produces 299.
So you need to persuade 33 times as many people (299/9) to switch to the best thing within the US vs number of people you can persuade to switch to the best international development charity.
At the current margin, it seems substantially easier to me to persuade one person to change cause towards international health and support the best charity in the area, than to persuade 33 US focused donors to choose the best thing in their area.
So, it seems like finding people willing to switch cause should be the community’s key priority until we’re at least 1-2 orders of magnitude bigger.
There are some other important strategic priorities that tell in favor of focus, such as (i) community building—it’s easier and safer to form the community around a well-coordinated, dedicated core of people rather than a wider base that is more vulnerable to dilution and fracturing (ii) delayability—it seems possible to add in cause-specific efforts in the future.
However, I think there are good arguments for putting a small amount of resources into a wider range of causes—such as (i) information value (i.e. learning about a wider range of areas) (ii) building expertise (we want to learn about lots of areas and skills since we’ll need this knowledge in the future) (iii) improving the brand (having some material for a wide range of areas makes it clear that we really do care about all ways of doing good (iv) creating stepping stones (you might be able to get some people involved with cause-specific content who will switch cause later on). Fortunately, this is already happening to some degree.
(First, really stupid question—not sure I understand the math here? Why wouldn’t switching from typical US to good US produce 9 extra units of impact per your assumption, not 4?)
Anyway, regarding this:
At the current margin, it seems substantially easier to me to persuade one person to change cause towards international health and support the best charity in the area, than to persuade 49 US focused donors to choose the best thing in their area.
I think one thing you’re not taking into account is that not all EA community members are interchangeable; different people have different leverage within their communities. It would be trivial for me to motivate 49 arts enthusiasts to switch donations to a better US charity in the arts, given that I run a publication with roughly 10k total followers and several hundred “true fans.” There are analogous people in other domains across the spectrum. So one approach to outreach could largely involve finding and forming partnerships with aligned, influential individuals in those domains.
Sorry I changed some of the numbers mid-way while writing then forgot to change the others to be in line. The’re updated now.
I think one thing you’re not taking into account is that not all EA community members are interchangeable; different people have different leverage within their communities. It would be trivial for me to motivate 49 arts enthusiasts to switch donations to a better US charity in the arts, given that I run a publication with roughly 10k total followers and several hundred “true fans.” There are analogous people in other domains across the spectrum. So one approach to outreach could largely involve finding and forming partnerships with aligned, influential individuals in those domains.
I agree—I was focusing on what the core focus of the community should be, but if people have a comparative advantage in an area that gives them 10-100x more leverage, it could outweigh. I can also see we might have underweighted the size of these differences in the past.
That’s interesting, Carl, I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of copyright reform as one of the highest-impact arts interventions, but the consumer surplus angle is intriguing. This exchange is actually a great example of how domains can benefit from participation in this community.
I also want to throw another thought out there: it’s not inconceivable to me that we might find the most effective way to support the arts in the world is to, say, give cash transfers to poor people in Africa. Or put resources towards some other broad, systemic issue that affects everyone but is disproportionately relevant in the domain of the arts. If people in the effective altruist community said that, everyone would freak out and think you’re just throwing stuff at a wall to get people to switch donations away from the arts. But if an entity with authentic roots in the arts said that, the reaction would be quite different. See, for example, this: http://creativz.us/2016/02/02/what-artists-actually-need-is-an-economy-that-works-for-everyone/ Furthermore, Createquity would only come to that conclusion after researching the other major interventions and causes within the arts that people already care about, so we would have a much more concrete comparative case to make.
As always, everything I’m saying here potentially applies in other cause areas as well. I know we’re talking about the arts a lot in this thread because that’s my background and what I know best, but I don’t think any of this is less true for, e.g., higher education or local social services.
I also want to throw another thought out there: it’s not inconceivable to me that we might find the most effective way to support the arts in the world is to, say, give cash transfers to poor people in Africa. Or put resources towards some other broad, systemic issue that affects everyone but is disproportionately relevant in the domain of the arts.
For a related take on advancing science, see this.
If we mean ‘the arts’ in general and over time, I think this is extremely likely. Basically that would mean working to reduce existential risk, in my view. The long-run artistic achievements of civilization (provided that it survives and retains any non-negligible interest in art) will be many orders of magnitude more numerous, and much higher in peak quality, than those we have seen so far.
I was taking you to mean ‘the arts’ as something like a constraint on the degree of indirectness, patience, etc, that one accepts. E.g. ‘the arts for my community now, not for foreigners or future times, via methods that are connected reasonably closely to the arts world.’
Regarding loosening copyright, it’s not just letting people enjoy the old works, but enabling new creation.
Citation please. I believe this claim is false. E.g. one of the most popular foundation grant areas is life sciences research. This GiveWell post ballparks generic cancer research (a relatively very heavily funded field that has gotten relatively weak results) as being less than 100x, and suggests that particularly effective biomedical research could be orders of magnitude more effective than that.
I say that this is quite unlikely. GiveWell estimates the benefits of SCI as about 5-10x the direct benefits of cash transfers. Cash transfers might give a 30x multiplier, but not 100x, I think.
And I am confident that the best arts projects generate more benefits for the beneficiaries than simply handing over the cash would. Consider something like loosening the Mickey Mouse copyright stranglehold and releasing old works into the public domain. The consumer surplus from such increased access to and creation of art could be quite large relative to the investment.
There is also the intersection of art and other important causes and issues. The arts (especially mass media like film-making) have played important roles in drawing attention to a variety of problems, and such art can be specifically supported.
From a cause-neutral point of view these are unlikely to be the very top priorities but the numbers you give above are not plausible to me.
People frequently behave as though EA is an ideology. I believe they ought not behave this way; we will do more good if we focus on doing good and not on the dogmas that inevitably arise out of the EA community. I myself am guilty of this: when responding to OP, I originally wanted to “defend my tribe” and say OP is bad and EA is good. I re-wrote my comment several times to focus on the fact that OP is actually good and saying valuable things, and to formulate a constructive and cooperative comment, instead of just defending my tribe. I believe this is a good thing and I ought to try to do this more often, and I can probably do better.
People often behave as though EA is an ideology, not a question; this is generally harmful.
I can probably mitigate the effects of (1) by reminding people to think of EA as a question, not an ideology; which is why I did so in my previous comment.
These are great points.
If we have more modest numbers we might get to a similar conclusion though.
e.g. suppose the distribution of cost-benefit ratios looks like this:
Typical US charity: 1
Good US charity: 10
Typical international charity: 20
GiveDirectly: 30
Biomedical research, US policy advocacy: 100
Best international charities (i.e. AMF): 300
Good meta-charity, xrisk, advocacy etc: 1500+
Then, moving someone from a typical US focused charity to a good one produces an extra 9 units of impact per dollar; whereas moving them to the best international charity produces 299.
So you need to persuade 33 times as many people (299/9) to switch to the best thing within the US vs number of people you can persuade to switch to the best international development charity.
At the current margin, it seems substantially easier to me to persuade one person to change cause towards international health and support the best charity in the area, than to persuade 33 US focused donors to choose the best thing in their area.
So, it seems like finding people willing to switch cause should be the community’s key priority until we’re at least 1-2 orders of magnitude bigger.
There are some other important strategic priorities that tell in favor of focus, such as (i) community building—it’s easier and safer to form the community around a well-coordinated, dedicated core of people rather than a wider base that is more vulnerable to dilution and fracturing (ii) delayability—it seems possible to add in cause-specific efforts in the future.
However, I think there are good arguments for putting a small amount of resources into a wider range of causes—such as (i) information value (i.e. learning about a wider range of areas) (ii) building expertise (we want to learn about lots of areas and skills since we’ll need this knowledge in the future) (iii) improving the brand (having some material for a wide range of areas makes it clear that we really do care about all ways of doing good (iv) creating stepping stones (you might be able to get some people involved with cause-specific content who will switch cause later on). Fortunately, this is already happening to some degree.
Edited to change some of the numbers
(First, really stupid question—not sure I understand the math here? Why wouldn’t switching from typical US to good US produce 9 extra units of impact per your assumption, not 4?)
Anyway, regarding this:
I think one thing you’re not taking into account is that not all EA community members are interchangeable; different people have different leverage within their communities. It would be trivial for me to motivate 49 arts enthusiasts to switch donations to a better US charity in the arts, given that I run a publication with roughly 10k total followers and several hundred “true fans.” There are analogous people in other domains across the spectrum. So one approach to outreach could largely involve finding and forming partnerships with aligned, influential individuals in those domains.
Sorry I changed some of the numbers mid-way while writing then forgot to change the others to be in line. The’re updated now.
I agree—I was focusing on what the core focus of the community should be, but if people have a comparative advantage in an area that gives them 10-100x more leverage, it could outweigh. I can also see we might have underweighted the size of these differences in the past.
That’s interesting, Carl, I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of copyright reform as one of the highest-impact arts interventions, but the consumer surplus angle is intriguing. This exchange is actually a great example of how domains can benefit from participation in this community.
I also want to throw another thought out there: it’s not inconceivable to me that we might find the most effective way to support the arts in the world is to, say, give cash transfers to poor people in Africa. Or put resources towards some other broad, systemic issue that affects everyone but is disproportionately relevant in the domain of the arts. If people in the effective altruist community said that, everyone would freak out and think you’re just throwing stuff at a wall to get people to switch donations away from the arts. But if an entity with authentic roots in the arts said that, the reaction would be quite different. See, for example, this: http://creativz.us/2016/02/02/what-artists-actually-need-is-an-economy-that-works-for-everyone/ Furthermore, Createquity would only come to that conclusion after researching the other major interventions and causes within the arts that people already care about, so we would have a much more concrete comparative case to make.
As always, everything I’m saying here potentially applies in other cause areas as well. I know we’re talking about the arts a lot in this thread because that’s my background and what I know best, but I don’t think any of this is less true for, e.g., higher education or local social services.
For a related take on advancing science, see this.
If we mean ‘the arts’ in general and over time, I think this is extremely likely. Basically that would mean working to reduce existential risk, in my view. The long-run artistic achievements of civilization (provided that it survives and retains any non-negligible interest in art) will be many orders of magnitude more numerous, and much higher in peak quality, than those we have seen so far.
I was taking you to mean ‘the arts’ as something like a constraint on the degree of indirectness, patience, etc, that one accepts. E.g. ‘the arts for my community now, not for foreigners or future times, via methods that are connected reasonably closely to the arts world.’
Regarding loosening copyright, it’s not just letting people enjoy the old works, but enabling new creation.