Keep in mind that there are two senses of the word “meta” that I see used often; Peter is speaking specifically about “working not on [a] cause directly, but instead working on getting more people to work on that cause.”
The other sense of “meta”, where you’re working not on the cause, but instead on figuring out the best interventions for that cause, is not what Peter is talking about here.
While the second sense of “meta” also might be a trap of sorts, since you could conceivably spend all your time/money doing meta-studies and never actually helping individuals, I don’t think we’re anywhere near that point for any EA causes. Even the most well-researched interventions deserve continued evaluation (such as evaluating the recent Cochrane review on deworming) and, in some cases, the research still requires a lot of work.
I agree that research on effective ways to alleviate animal suffering is especially underfunded, and is plausibly a higher priority than direct work in this particular field, given the lack of knowledge about which types of direct work help.
Great stuff, Eric. Your input seems as valuable to consider as the OP itself is. I agree.
Helping direct animal charities is important, but I believe it is far more important to continue working on research instead.
If you replace [animal] with [GCR reduction] or [x-risk reduction] in this sentence, I suspect the same is true for that cause, though I’m not personally enmeshed in the field enough to provide as good examples as you have for animal charity. This is why I currently favor increased research output from the Global Catastrophic Risks Institute, the Open Philanthropy Project, and/or the Future of LIfe Institute rather than, say, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. I really need to look into this more, though, as you have for animal charities.
Sort of. I mean, I support efforts to prioritize between catastrophic or existential risks, or more searching, e.g., for alternative or multilateral approaches to A.I. risk relative to just supporting MIRI’s research agenda.
For the record, Peter, when you were in Vancouver and I told you I thought the best thing for effective altruism was to reduce uncertainty between or within causes, and you suggested I donate to Mercy For Animals to help them recoup the costs of and complete their research for intervention experiments, I agree with you. I haven’t donate, and will not likely donate in the near future, to this cause, though, because I am currently broke :(
I need to remedy this by applying for better jobs and spending less time on the EA Forum. This is so exciting it’s hard for me to stop, though.
Keep in mind that there are two senses of the word “meta” that I see used often; Peter is speaking specifically about “working not on [a] cause directly, but instead working on getting more people to work on that cause.”
The other sense of “meta”, where you’re working not on the cause, but instead on figuring out the best interventions for that cause, is not what Peter is talking about here.
While the second sense of “meta” also might be a trap of sorts, since you could conceivably spend all your time/money doing meta-studies and never actually helping individuals, I don’t think we’re anywhere near that point for any EA causes. Even the most well-researched interventions deserve continued evaluation (such as evaluating the recent Cochrane review on deworming) and, in some cases, the research still requires a lot of work.
Reducing animal suffering is a prime example of this. Helping direct animal charities is important, but I believe it is far more important to continue working on research instead. Consider that in the field of animal welfare most intervention types have yet to be evaluated, and even the most highly regarded interventions come with caveats like “in the absence of strong reasons to believe the effects are negative, we expect the effects to be positive on balance” on corporate outreach, or the even more extreme “no difference found in the total change in consumption of animal products between the two groups”, after which the leafleting intervention is nevertheless recommended. (This is not to say that these interventions are poor; to the contrary, they’re the best that have so far been found by ACE. I just think more money should go toward research to either find better interventions or better understand the current top interventions.)
So while Peter might be correct when it comes to meta-work in the sense of recruiting, I don’t believe it would be correct in the sense of research.
I agree that research on effective ways to alleviate animal suffering is especially underfunded, and is plausibly a higher priority than direct work in this particular field, given the lack of knowledge about which types of direct work help.
I agree. There is a new initiative to fund and coordinate research on interventions for farm animals. We just posted details at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveAnimalActivism/permalink/483367015167508/
Great stuff, Eric. Your input seems as valuable to consider as the OP itself is. I agree.
If you replace [animal] with [GCR reduction] or [x-risk reduction] in this sentence, I suspect the same is true for that cause, though I’m not personally enmeshed in the field enough to provide as good examples as you have for animal charity. This is why I currently favor increased research output from the Global Catastrophic Risks Institute, the Open Philanthropy Project, and/or the Future of LIfe Institute rather than, say, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. I really need to look into this more, though, as you have for animal charities.
MIRI primarily does research too though. Do you mean you prefer to support cause prioritization research?
Sort of. I mean, I support efforts to prioritize between catastrophic or existential risks, or more searching, e.g., for alternative or multilateral approaches to A.I. risk relative to just supporting MIRI’s research agenda.
For the record, I do agree with this.
For the record, Peter, when you were in Vancouver and I told you I thought the best thing for effective altruism was to reduce uncertainty between or within causes, and you suggested I donate to Mercy For Animals to help them recoup the costs of and complete their research for intervention experiments, I agree with you. I haven’t donate, and will not likely donate in the near future, to this cause, though, because I am currently broke :(
I need to remedy this by applying for better jobs and spending less time on the EA Forum. This is so exciting it’s hard for me to stop, though.
No worries. We were able to close our funding gap.