I do think it is a key pillar of EA that there is open public discussion of arguments for and against different positions. I haven’t seen much engagement with the case for focusing on economic growth.
Rob Wiblin: …if you were able to get even 10x leverage using science and policy by trying to help Americans, by like, improving U.S. economic policy, or doing scientific research that would help Americans, shouldn’t you then be able to blow Against Malaria Foundation out of the water by applying those same methods, like science and policy, in the developing world, to also help the world’s poorest people?
Alexander Berger: Let me give two reactions. One is I take that to be the conclusion of that post. I think the argument at the end of the post was like, “We’re hiring. We think we should be able to find better causes. Come help us.” And we did, in fact, hire a few people. And they have been doing a bunch of work on this over the last few years to try to find better causes...
The most relevant comments in the transcript seem to be in the section “GiveWell’s top charities are (increasingly) hard to beat”.
Alexander Berger discusses this at length in a recent 80,000 Hours podcast interview with Rob Wiblin.
I do think it is a key pillar of EA that there is open public discussion of arguments for and against different positions. I haven’t seen much engagement with the case for focusing on economic growth.
+1
One excerpt worth quoting (emphasis added):
The most relevant comments in the transcript seem to be in the section “GiveWell’s top charities are (increasingly) hard to beat”.