Nice post Joey, thanks for laying it out so clearly.
I agree with almost all of this. I find it interesting to think more about which domains /â dimensions Iâd prefer to push towards prioritization vs. pluralism:
Speaking loosely, I think EA could push more towards pluralism for career decisions (where personal fit, talent absorbency and specialization are important), and FAW/âGHD/âGCR cause prioritization (where I at least feel swamped by uncertainty). But Iâm pretty unsure on where to shift on the margin in other domains like GiveWell style GHD direct delivery (where money is ~fungible, and comparisons can be meaningful).
e.g. I suspect Iâm more willing to prioritize than you on bednets vs. therapy. I think you /â AIM are more positive than me about therapy (as currently delivered) on the merits. Sure, thereâs a lot of uncertainty, but having spent a bit of time with the CEAs, I just find it real hard to get to therapy being more cost-effective than bednets in high burden areas.
you could pretty easily imagine a GW-like charity evaluator that ranks income as x4 as important as GW does coming to pretty different but still highly compelling top charities
I agree moral weights are one of the more uncertain parameters, though I think the range of reasonable disagreement given current evidence is a bit less wide than implied here. Iâd love to see someone dive deep on the question and actually make the case that we should be using moral weights for income 4x higher vs. health, rather than theyâre plausible.
I guess a general theme is that I worry about a tendency to string together lots of âplausibleâ assumptions without defending them as their best guess, and that eroding a prioritization mindset. I think youâd probably agree with that in general, but suspect we have different practical views on some specifics.
Hi, James! When it comes to assessing bednets vs therapy or more generally, saving a life vs happiness improvements for people, the meat eater problem looms large for me. This immediately complicates the trade-off, but I donât think dismissing it is justifiable on most moral theories given our current understanding that farm animals are likely conscious, feel pain, and thus deserve moral consideration. Once we include this second-order consideration, itâs hard to know the magnitude of the impact given animal consumption, income, economic growth, wild animal, etc. effects. Youâve done a lot of work evaluating mental health vs life-saving interventions (thanks for that!), how does including animals impact your thinking? Do you think itâs better that we should just ignore it (like GiveWell does)?
I think this goes back to Joeyâs case for a more pluralistic perspective, but I take your point that in some cases, we may be doing too much of that. Itâs just hard to know how wide a range of arguments to include when assessing this balance...
Hi Wayne, thatâs fair. I hadnât been including farmed animal welfare in the comparison because I donât think people donating to therapy organizations are doing it for animal welfare reasons.
I donât think it would be practical for givewell to include animal welfare in its evaluations. I think donors who care about both animal and human welfare would have more impact giving to separate projects optimising for each of those goals
Nice post Joey, thanks for laying it out so clearly.
I agree with almost all of this. I find it interesting to think more about which domains /â dimensions Iâd prefer to push towards prioritization vs. pluralism:
Speaking loosely, I think EA could push more towards pluralism for career decisions (where personal fit, talent absorbency and specialization are important), and FAW/âGHD/âGCR cause prioritization (where I at least feel swamped by uncertainty). But Iâm pretty unsure on where to shift on the margin in other domains like GiveWell style GHD direct delivery (where money is ~fungible, and comparisons can be meaningful).
e.g. I suspect Iâm more willing to prioritize than you on bednets vs. therapy. I think you /â AIM are more positive than me about therapy (as currently delivered) on the merits. Sure, thereâs a lot of uncertainty, but having spent a bit of time with the CEAs, I just find it real hard to get to therapy being more cost-effective than bednets in high burden areas.
I agree moral weights are one of the more uncertain parameters, though I think the range of reasonable disagreement given current evidence is a bit less wide than implied here. Iâd love to see someone dive deep on the question and actually make the case that we should be using moral weights for income 4x higher vs. health, rather than theyâre plausible.
I guess a general theme is that I worry about a tendency to string together lots of âplausibleâ assumptions without defending them as their best guess, and that eroding a prioritization mindset. I think youâd probably agree with that in general, but suspect we have different practical views on some specifics.
Hi, James! When it comes to assessing bednets vs therapy or more generally, saving a life vs happiness improvements for people, the meat eater problem looms large for me. This immediately complicates the trade-off, but I donât think dismissing it is justifiable on most moral theories given our current understanding that farm animals are likely conscious, feel pain, and thus deserve moral consideration. Once we include this second-order consideration, itâs hard to know the magnitude of the impact given animal consumption, income, economic growth, wild animal, etc. effects. Youâve done a lot of work evaluating mental health vs life-saving interventions (thanks for that!), how does including animals impact your thinking? Do you think itâs better that we should just ignore it (like GiveWell does)?
I think this goes back to Joeyâs case for a more pluralistic perspective, but I take your point that in some cases, we may be doing too much of that. Itâs just hard to know how wide a range of arguments to include when assessing this balance...
Hi Wayne, thatâs fair. I hadnât been including farmed animal welfare in the comparison because I donât think people donating to therapy organizations are doing it for animal welfare reasons.
I donât think it would be practical for givewell to include animal welfare in its evaluations. I think donors who care about both animal and human welfare would have more impact giving to separate projects optimising for each of those goals
Small thing. I think phrasing is the the âmeat eatingâ problem is better here, will continue to plug this.