(I don’t think this is considered a debate by most people—my read is that less than 5% of people involved with EA consider psychedelics a plausible EA cause area, possibly less than 1%)
I simultaneously have some sympathy for this view and think that people responding to this question by pushing their pet cause areas aren’t engaging well with the question as I understand it.
For example, I think that anti-ageing research is probably significantly underrated by EAs in general and would happily push for it in a question like “what cause areas are underrated by EAs”, but would not (and have not) reference it here as a “key ongoing debate in EA”, because I recognise that many people who aren’t already convinced wouldn’t consider it such.
So one criterion I might use would be whether disputants on both sides would consider the debate to be key.
I also agree with point (2) of Khorton’s response to this.
Thinking about this more, I suspect a lot of people would agree that some more general statement, like “What important cause areas is EA missing out on?” is a key ongoing debate, while being sceptical about most specific claimants to that status (because if most people weren’t sceptical, EA wouldn’t be missing out on that cause area).
I’m interested in betting about whether 20% of EAs think psychedelics are a plausible top EA cause area. Eg we could sample 20 EAs from some group and ask them. Perhaps we could ask random attendees from last year’s EAG. Or we could do a poll in EA Hangout.
We may need to operationalize “top EA cause area” more precisely but I would concur with Buck/also bet money odds that <20% of a reasonable random sample of EAs will not answer a question like “in 2025, will psychedelics normalization be a top 5 priority for EAs?” in the affirmative.
Happy to make a bet here – let’s figure out an operationalization that would satisfy all parties!
fwiw 21.5% of 2019 EA survey respondents thought Mental Health should be “top or near top priority” and 58.5% though it should receive “at least significant resources”.
I’m sure we can quibble about how the “Mental Health” should map to the “Psychedelics” category, though it seems clear that psychedelics are one of the most promising developments in mental health in the last few decades (breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA and all that).
If we assume half of the above considered psychedelics to be in the mental health bucket, then 10.75% of 2019 respondents thought psychedelics should be “top or near top priority” and 29.25% thought that psychedelics should receive “at least significant” EA resources. (And so I’d win the bet under that operationalization, though I suppose we’d also have to quibble over how “receive at least significant resources” maps to “plausible top EA cause area”...)
I’m sure we can quibble about how the “Mental Health” should map to the “Psychedelics” category, though it seems clear that psychedelics are one of the most promising developments in mental health in the last few decades (breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA and all that).
If we assume half of the above considered psychedelics to be in the mental health bucket …
This does not seem like a quibble to me at all. It seems ‘clear’ to you but this is by no means the case for most people. I would happily bet that well under half of those people were thinking psychedelics when they said mental health.
Even if we assume that only 25% of Mental Health supporters were thinking of psychedelics, that’s still 15% of survey respondents saying that psychedelics should receive “at least significant” EA resources.
0.585 * .25 = 0.15 [edited to correct double-counting]
I don’t think you can add the percentages for “top or near top priority” and “at least significant resources”. If you look at the row for global poverty, the percentages add up to over 100% (61.7% + 87.0% = 148.7%), which means the table is double counting some people.
Looking at the bar graph above the table, it looks like “at least significant resources” includes everyone in “significant resources”, “near-top priority”, and “top priority”. For mental health it looks like “significant resources” has 37%, and “near-top priority” and “top priority” combined have 21.5% (shown as 22% in the bar graph).
So your actual calculation would just be 0.585 * .25 which is about 15%.
It seems clear to me because most mental health professionals I’ve encountered in the last ~2 years agree that psychedelics are the most innovative thing coming into mainstream Western mental health since SSRIs came online in the 1990s.
There’s an obvious sampling bias here, but I’ve seen this from many people who are personally skeptical or uncertain about psychedelics and still agree that the early trials are extremely promising, not just from enthusiasts.
You can also see it in the media coverage – there’s a lot of positive press about the psychedelic renaissance and some voices of caution too, but basically no negative press. (And the voices of caution are mostly saying “this is a very powerful thing that needs to be managed carefully.”)
Whether or not psychedelics are an EA cause area.
Psychedelics posts on the Forum in 2019:
Psychedelics Normalization
Why isn’t Good Ventures psychedelics grantmaking housed under Open Phil?
Cash prizes for the best arguments against psychedelics being an EA cause area
Philanthropy, psychedelics and effective altruism
Debrief: “cash prizes for the best arguments against psychedelics”
Pros/cons of funding more research on whether psychedelics increase altruism?
Treating Cluster Headaches Using N,N-DMT and Other Tryptamines
Using Ibogaine to Create Friendlier Opioids
How to contribute to the psychedelics ecosystem
(I don’t think this is considered a debate by most people—my read is that less than 5% of people involved with EA consider psychedelics a plausible EA cause area, possibly less than 1%)
“View X is a rare/unusual view, and therefore it’s not a debate.” That seems a little… condescending or something?
How are we ever supposed to learn anything new if we don’t debate rare/unusual views?
I simultaneously have some sympathy for this view and think that people responding to this question by pushing their pet cause areas aren’t engaging well with the question as I understand it.
For example, I think that anti-ageing research is probably significantly underrated by EAs in general and would happily push for it in a question like “what cause areas are underrated by EAs”, but would not (and have not) reference it here as a “key ongoing debate in EA”, because I recognise that many people who aren’t already convinced wouldn’t consider it such.
So one criterion I might use would be whether disputants on both sides would consider the debate to be key.
I also agree with point (2) of Khorton’s response to this.
Thinking about this more, I suspect a lot of people would agree that some more general statement, like “What important cause areas is EA missing out on?” is a key ongoing debate, while being sceptical about most specific claimants to that status (because if most people weren’t sceptical, EA wouldn’t be missing out on that cause area).
I think this is two different things:
yes I was being a bit condescending, sorry
I wasn’t trying to say what should be a debate; I was trying to lend accuracy to the discussion of what is a key debate in the EA community.
Apology accepted, thanks. I agree on point 2.
I definitely don’t think it would generally be considered a key debate.
I think it’s closely related to key theoretical debates, e.g. Romeo’s answer and Khorton’s answer on this thread.
fwiw my read on that is ~15-35%, but we run in different circles
I’m interested in betting about whether 20% of EAs think psychedelics are a plausible top EA cause area. Eg we could sample 20 EAs from some group and ask them. Perhaps we could ask random attendees from last year’s EAG. Or we could do a poll in EA Hangout.
We may need to operationalize “top EA cause area” more precisely but I would concur with Buck/also bet money odds that <20% of a reasonable random sample of EAs will not answer a question like “in 2025, will psychedelics normalization be a top 5 priority for EAs?” in the affirmative.
Happy to make a bet here – let’s figure out an operationalization that would satisfy all parties!
fwiw 21.5% of 2019 EA survey respondents thought Mental Health should be “top or near top priority” and 58.5% though it should receive “at least significant resources”.
I’m sure we can quibble about how the “Mental Health” should map to the “Psychedelics” category, though it seems clear that psychedelics are one of the most promising developments in mental health in the last few decades (breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA and all that).
If we assume half of the above considered psychedelics to be in the mental health bucket, then 10.75% of 2019 respondents thought psychedelics should be “top or near top priority” and 29.25% thought that psychedelics should receive “at least significant” EA resources. (And so I’d win the bet under that operationalization, though I suppose we’d also have to quibble over how “receive at least significant resources” maps to “plausible top EA cause area”...)
This does not seem like a quibble to me at all. It seems ‘clear’ to you but this is by no means the case for most people. I would happily bet that well under half of those people were thinking psychedelics when they said mental health.
Even if we assume that only 25% of Mental Health supporters were thinking of psychedelics, that’s still 15% of survey respondents saying that psychedelics should receive “at least significant” EA resources.
0.585 * .25 = 0.15 [edited to correct double-counting]
Honestly I would assume less; I voted for Mental Health thinking of Strong Minds.
Ditto to both parts of this
I don’t think you can add the percentages for “top or near top priority” and “at least significant resources”. If you look at the row for global poverty, the percentages add up to over 100% (61.7% + 87.0% = 148.7%), which means the table is double counting some people.
Looking at the bar graph above the table, it looks like “at least significant resources” includes everyone in “significant resources”, “near-top priority”, and “top priority”. For mental health it looks like “significant resources” has 37%, and “near-top priority” and “top priority” combined have 21.5% (shown as 22% in the bar graph).
So your actual calculation would just be 0.585 * .25 which is about 15%.
Good point, thanks. I’ve edited my comment to correct the double-counting.
Fair enough.
It seems clear to me because most mental health professionals I’ve encountered in the last ~2 years agree that psychedelics are the most innovative thing coming into mainstream Western mental health since SSRIs came online in the 1990s.
There’s an obvious sampling bias here, but I’ve seen this from many people who are personally skeptical or uncertain about psychedelics and still agree that the early trials are extremely promising, not just from enthusiasts.
You can also see it in the media coverage – there’s a lot of positive press about the psychedelic renaissance and some voices of caution too, but basically no negative press. (And the voices of caution are mostly saying “this is a very powerful thing that needs to be managed carefully.”)
I’d like to take Buck’s side of the bet as well if you’re willing to bet more