While at CEA, I was asked to take the curriculum for the Intro Fellowship and turn it into the Handbook, and I made a variety of changes (though there have been other changes to the Fellowship and the Handbook since then, making it hard to track exactly what I changed). The Intro Fellowship curriculum and the Handbook were never identical.
I exchanged emails with Michael Plant and Sella Nevo, and reached out to several other people in the global development/âanimal welfare communities who didnât reply. I also had my version reviewed by a dozen test readers (at least three readers for each section), who provided additional feedback on all of the material.
I incorporated many of the suggestions I received, though at this point I donât remember which came from Michael, Sella, or other readers. I also made many changes on my own.
Itâs reasonable to argue that I should have reached out to even more people, or incorporated more of the feedback I received. But I (and the other people who worked on this at CEA) were very aware of representativeness concerns. And I think the 3rd edition was a lot more balanced than the 2nd edition. Iâd break down the sections as follows:
âThe Effectiveness Mindsetâ, âDifferences in Impactâ, and âExpanding Our Compassionâ are about EA philosophy with a near-term focus (most of the pieces use examples from near-term causes, and the âMore to Exploreâ sections share a bunch of material specifically focused on anima welfare and global development).
âLongtermismâ and âExistential Riskâ are about longtermism and X-risk in general.
âEmerging Technologiesâ covers AI and biorisk specifically.
These topics get more specific detail than animal welfare and global development do if you look at the required reading alone. This is a real imbalance, but seems minor compared to the imbalance in the 2nd edition. For example, the 3rd edition doesnât set aside a large chunk of the only global health + development essay for âwhy you might not want to work in this areaâ.
âWhat might we be missing?â covers a range of critical arguments, including many against longtermism!
Michael Plant seems not to have noticed the longtermism critiques in his comment, though they include âPascalâs Muggingâ in the âEssentialsâ section and a bunch of other relevant material in the âMore to Exploreâ section.
âPutting it into practiceâ is focused on career choice and links mostly to 80K resources, which does give it a longtermist tilt. But it also links to a bunch of resources on finding careers in neartermist spaces, and if someone wanted to work on e.g. global health, I think theyâd still find much to value among those links.
I wouldnât be surprised if this section became much more balanced over time as more material becomes available from Probably Good (and other career orgs focused on specific areas).
In the end, you have three âneartermistâ sections, four âlongtermistâ sections (if you count career choice), and one âneutralâ section (critiques and counter-critiques that span the gamut of common focus areas).
Thanks for sharing this history and your perspective Aaron.
I agree that 1) the problems with the 3rd edition were less severe than those with the 2nd edition (though Iâd say thatâs a very low bar to clear) and 2) the 3rd edition looks more representative if you weigh the âmore to exploreâ sections equally with âthe essentialsâ (though IMO itâs pretty clear that the curriculum places way more weight on the content it frames as âessentialâ than a content linked to at the bottom of the âfurther readingâ section.)
I disagree with your characterization of âThe Effectiveness Mindsetâ, âDifferences in Impactâ, and âExpanding Our Compassionâ as neartermist content in a way thatâs comparable to how subsequent sections are longtermist content. The early sections include some content that is clearly neartermist (e.g. âThe case against speciesismâ, and âThe moral imperative toward cost-effectiveness in global healthâ). But much, maybe most, of the âessentialâ reading in the first three sections isnât really about neartermist (or longtermist) causes. For instance, âWe are in triage every second of every dayâ is about⌠triage. Iâd also put âOn Fringe Ideasâ, âMoral Progress and Cause Xâ, âCan one person make a difference?â, âRadical Empathyâ, and âProspecting for Goldâ in this bucket.
By contrast, the essential reading in the âLongtermismâ, âExistential Riskâ, and âEmerging technologiesâ section is all highly focused on longtermist causes/âworldview; itâs all stuff like âReducing global catastrophic biological risksâ, âThe case for reducing existential riskâ, and âThe case for strong longtermismâ.
I also disagree that the âWhat we may be missing?â section places much emphasis on longtermist critiques (outside of the âmore to exploreâ section, which I donât think carries much weight as mentioned earlier). âPascalâs muggingâ is relevant to, but not specific to, longtermism, and âThe case of the missing cause prioritization researchâ doesnât criticize longtermist ideas per se, it more argues that the shift toward prioritizing longtermism hasnât been informed by significant amounts of relevant research. I find it telling that âObjections to EAâ (framed as a bit of a laundry list) doesnât include anything about longtermism and that as far as I can tell no content in this whole section addresses the most frequent and intuitive criticism of longtermism Iâve heard (that itâs really really hard to influence the far future so we should be skeptical of our ability to do so).
Process-wise, I donât think the use of test readers was an effective way of making sure the handbook was representative. Each test reader only saw a fraction of the content, so theyâd be in no position to comment on the handbook as a whole. While Iâm glad you approached members of the animal and global development communities for feedback, I think the fact that they didnât respond is itself a form of (negative) feedback (which I would guess reflects the skepticism Michael expressed that his feedback would be incorporated). Iâd feel better about the process if, for example, youâd posted in poverty and animal focused Facebook groups and offered to pay people (like the test readers were paid) to weigh in on whether the handbook represented their cause appropriately.
Iâll read any reply to this and make sure CEA sees it, but I donât plan to respond further myself, as Iâm no longer working on this project.
Thanks for the response. I agree with some of your points and disagree with others.
To preface this, I wouldnât make a claim like âthe 3rd edition was representative for X definition of the wordâ or âI was satisfied with the Handbook when we published itâ (I left CEA with 19 pages of notes on changes I was considering). Thereâs plenty of good criticism that one could make of it, from almost any perspective.
Itâs pretty clear that the curriculum places way more weight on the content it frames as âessentialâ than a content linked to at the bottom of the âfurther readingâ section.
I agree.
But much, maybe most, of the âessentialâ reading in the first three sections isnât really about neartermist (or longtermist) causes. For instance, âWe are in triage every second of every dayâ is about⌠triage. Iâd also put âOn Fringe Ideasâ, âMoral Progress and Cause Xâ, âCan one person make a difference?â, âRadical Empathyâ, and âProspecting for Goldâ in this bucket.
Many of these have ideas that can be applied to either perspective. But the actual things they discuss are mostly near-term causes.
âOn Fringe Ideasâ focuses on wild animal welfare.
âWe are in triageâ ends with a discussion of global development (an area where the triage metaphor makes far more intuitive sense than it does for longtermist areas).
âRadical Empathyâ is almost entirely focused on specific neartermist causes.
âCan one person make a differenceâ features three people who made a big difference â two doctors and Petrov. Long-term impact gets a brief shout-out at the end, but the impact of each person is measured by how many lives they saved in their own time (or through to the present day).
This is different from e.g. detailed pieces describing causes like malaria prevention or vitamin supplementation. I think thatâs a real gap in the Handbook, and worth addressing.
But it seems to me like anyone who starts the Handbook will get a very strong impression in those first three sections that EA cares a lot about near-term causes, helping people today, helping animals, and tackling measurable problems. That impression matters more to me than cause-specific knowledge (though again, some of that would still be nice!).
However, I may be biased here by my teaching experience. In the two introductory fellowships Iâve facilitated, participants who read these essays spent their first three weeks discussing almost exclusively near-term causes and examples.
By contrast, the essential reading in the âLongtermismâ, âExistential Riskâ, and âEmerging technologiesâ section is all highly focused on longtermist causes/âworldview; itâs all stuff like âReducing global catastrophic biological risksâ, âThe case for reducing existential riskâ, and âThe case for strong longtermismâ.
I agree that the reading in these sections is more focused. Nonetheless, I still feel like thereâs a decent balance, for reasons that arenât obvious from the content alone:
Most people have a better intuitive sense for neartermist causes and ideas. I found that longtermism (and AI specifically) required more explanation and discussion before people understood them, relative to the causes and ideas mentioned in the first three weeks. Population ethics alone took up most of a week.
âLongtermistâ causes sometimes arenât. I still donât quite understand how we decided to add pandemic prevention to the âlongtermistâ bucket. When that issue came up, people were intensely interested and found the subject relative to their own lives/âthe lives of people they knew.
I wouldnât be surprised if many people in EA (including people in my intro fellowships) saw many of Toby Ordâs âpolicy and research ideasâ as competitive with AMF just for saving people alive today.
I assume there are also people who would see AMF as competitive with many longtermist orgs in terms of improving the future, but Iâd guess they arenât nearly as common.
âPascalâs muggingâ is relevant to, but not specific to, longtermism
I donât think Iâve seen Pascalâs Mugging discussed in any non-longtermist context, unless you count actual religion. Do you have an example on hand for where people have applied the idea to a neartermist cause?
âThe case of the missing cause prioritization researchâ doesnât criticize longtermist ideas per se, it more argues that the shift toward prioritizing longtermism hasnât been informed by significant amounts of relevant research.
I agree. I wouldnât think of that piece as critical of longtermism.
As far as I can tell, no content in this whole section addresses the most frequent and intuitive criticism of longtermism Iâve heard (that itâs really really hard to influence the far future so we should be skeptical of our ability to do so).
I havenât gone back to check all the material, but I assume youâre correct. I think it would be useful to add more content on this point.
This is another case where my experience as a facilitator warps my perspective; I think both of my groups discussed this, so it didnât occur to me that it wasnât an âofficialâ topic.
Process-wise, I donât think the use of test readers was an effective way of making sure the handbook was representative. Each test reader only saw a fraction of the content, so theyâd be in no position to comment on the handbook as a whole.
I agree. That wasnât the purpose of selecting test readers; I mentioned them only because some of them happened to make useful suggestions on this front.
While Iâm glad you approached members of the animal and global development communities for feedback, I think the fact that they didnât respond is itself a form of (negative) feedback (which I would guess reflects the skepticism Michael expressed that his feedback would be incorporated).
I wrote to four people, two of whom (including Michael) sent useful feedback . The other two also responded; one said they were busy, the other seemed excited/âinterested but never wound up sending anything.
A 50% useful-response rate isnât bad, and makes me wish Iâd sent more of those emails. My excuse is the dumb-but-true âI was busy, and this was one project among manyâ.
(As an aside, if someone wanted to draft a near-term-focused version of the Handbook, I think theyâd have a very good shot at getting a grant.)
Iâd feel better about the process if, for example, youâd posted in poverty and animal focused Facebook groups and offered to pay people (like the test readers were paid) to weigh in on whether the handbook represented their cause appropriately.
Iâd probably have asked âwhat else should we include?â rather than âis this current stuff good?â, but I agree with this in spirit.
(As another aside, if you specifically have ideas for material youâd like to see included, Iâd be happy to pass them along to CEA â or you could contact someone like Max or Lizka.)
But it seems to me like anyone who starts the Handbook will get a very strong impression in those first three sections that EA cares a lot about near-term causes, helping people today, helping animals, and tackling measurable problems. That impression matters more to me than cause-specific knowledge (though again, some of that would still be nice!).
However, I may be biased here by my teaching experience. In the two introductory fellowships Iâve facilitated, participants who read these essays spent their first three weeks discussing almost exclusively near-term causes and examples.
Thatâs helpful anecdata about your teaching experience. Iâd love to see a more rigorous and thorough study of how participants respond to the fellowships to see how representative your experience is.
I donât think Iâve seen Pascalâs Mugging discussed in any non-longtermist context, unless you count actual religion. Do you have an example on hand for where people have applied the idea to a neartermist cause?
Iâm pretty sure Iâve heard it used in the context of a scenario questioning whether torture is justified to stop the threat dirty bomb thatâs about to go off in a city.
I wrote to four people, two of whom (including Michael) sent useful feedback . The other two also responded; one said they were busy, the other seemed excited/âinterested but never wound up sending anything.
A 50% useful-response rate isnât bad, and makes me wish Iâd sent more of those emails. My excuse is the dumb-but-true âI was busy, and this was one project among manyâ.
Thatâs a good excuse :) I misinterpreted Michaelâs previous comment as saying his feedback didnât get incorporated at all. This process seems better than Iâd realized (though still short of what Iâd have liked to see after the negative reaction to the 2nd edition).
if you specifically have ideas for material youâd like to see included, Iâd be happy to pass them along to CEA â or you could contact someone like Max or Lizka.
GiveWellâs Giving 101 would be a great fit for global poverty. For animal welfare content, Iâd suggest making the first chapter of Animal Liberation part of the essential content (or at least further reading), rather than part of the âmore to exploreâ content. But my meta-suggestion would be to ask people who specialize in doing poverty/âanimal outreach for suggestions.
While at CEA, I was asked to take the curriculum for the Intro Fellowship and turn it into the Handbook, and I made a variety of changes (though there have been other changes to the Fellowship and the Handbook since then, making it hard to track exactly what I changed). The Intro Fellowship curriculum and the Handbook were never identical.
I exchanged emails with Michael Plant and Sella Nevo, and reached out to several other people in the global development/âanimal welfare communities who didnât reply. I also had my version reviewed by a dozen test readers (at least three readers for each section), who provided additional feedback on all of the material.
I incorporated many of the suggestions I received, though at this point I donât remember which came from Michael, Sella, or other readers. I also made many changes on my own.
Itâs reasonable to argue that I should have reached out to even more people, or incorporated more of the feedback I received. But I (and the other people who worked on this at CEA) were very aware of representativeness concerns. And I think the 3rd edition was a lot more balanced than the 2nd edition. Iâd break down the sections as follows:
âThe Effectiveness Mindsetâ, âDifferences in Impactâ, and âExpanding Our Compassionâ are about EA philosophy with a near-term focus (most of the pieces use examples from near-term causes, and the âMore to Exploreâ sections share a bunch of material specifically focused on anima welfare and global development).
âLongtermismâ and âExistential Riskâ are about longtermism and X-risk in general.
âEmerging Technologiesâ covers AI and biorisk specifically.
These topics get more specific detail than animal welfare and global development do if you look at the required reading alone. This is a real imbalance, but seems minor compared to the imbalance in the 2nd edition. For example, the 3rd edition doesnât set aside a large chunk of the only global health + development essay for âwhy you might not want to work in this areaâ.
âWhat might we be missing?â covers a range of critical arguments, including many against longtermism!
Michael Plant seems not to have noticed the longtermism critiques in his comment, though they include âPascalâs Muggingâ in the âEssentialsâ section and a bunch of other relevant material in the âMore to Exploreâ section.
âPutting it into practiceâ is focused on career choice and links mostly to 80K resources, which does give it a longtermist tilt. But it also links to a bunch of resources on finding careers in neartermist spaces, and if someone wanted to work on e.g. global health, I think theyâd still find much to value among those links.
I wouldnât be surprised if this section became much more balanced over time as more material becomes available from Probably Good (and other career orgs focused on specific areas).
In the end, you have three âneartermistâ sections, four âlongtermistâ sections (if you count career choice), and one âneutralâ section (critiques and counter-critiques that span the gamut of common focus areas).
Thanks for sharing this history and your perspective Aaron.
I agree that 1) the problems with the 3rd edition were less severe than those with the 2nd edition (though Iâd say thatâs a very low bar to clear) and 2) the 3rd edition looks more representative if you weigh the âmore to exploreâ sections equally with âthe essentialsâ (though IMO itâs pretty clear that the curriculum places way more weight on the content it frames as âessentialâ than a content linked to at the bottom of the âfurther readingâ section.)
I disagree with your characterization of âThe Effectiveness Mindsetâ, âDifferences in Impactâ, and âExpanding Our Compassionâ as neartermist content in a way thatâs comparable to how subsequent sections are longtermist content. The early sections include some content that is clearly neartermist (e.g. âThe case against speciesismâ, and âThe moral imperative toward cost-effectiveness in global healthâ). But much, maybe most, of the
âessentialâ reading in the first three sections isnât really about neartermist (or longtermist) causes. For instance, âWe are in triage every second of every dayâ is about⌠triage. Iâd also put âOn Fringe Ideasâ, âMoral Progress and Cause Xâ, âCan one person make a difference?â, âRadical Empathyâ, and âProspecting for Goldâ in this bucket.
By contrast, the essential reading in the âLongtermismâ, âExistential Riskâ, and âEmerging technologiesâ section is all highly focused on longtermist causes/âworldview; itâs all stuff like âReducing global catastrophic biological risksâ, âThe case for reducing existential riskâ, and âThe case for strong longtermismâ.
I also disagree that the âWhat we may be missing?â section places much emphasis on longtermist critiques (outside of the âmore to exploreâ section, which I donât think carries much weight as mentioned earlier). âPascalâs muggingâ is relevant to, but not specific to, longtermism, and âThe case of the missing cause prioritization researchâ doesnât criticize longtermist ideas per se, it more argues that the shift toward prioritizing longtermism hasnât been informed by significant amounts of relevant research. I find it telling that âObjections to EAâ (framed as a bit of a laundry list) doesnât include anything about longtermism and that as far as I can tell no content in this whole section addresses the most frequent and intuitive criticism of longtermism Iâve heard (that itâs really really hard to influence the far future so we should be skeptical of our ability to do so).
Process-wise, I donât think the use of test readers was an effective way of making sure the handbook was representative. Each test reader only saw a fraction of the content, so theyâd be in no position to comment on the handbook as a whole. While Iâm glad you approached members of the animal and global development communities for feedback, I think the fact that they didnât respond is itself a form of (negative) feedback (which I would guess reflects the skepticism Michael expressed that his feedback would be incorporated). Iâd feel better about the process if, for example, youâd posted in poverty and animal focused Facebook groups and offered to pay people (like the test readers were paid) to weigh in on whether the handbook represented their cause appropriately.
Iâll read any reply to this and make sure CEA sees it, but I donât plan to respond further myself, as Iâm no longer working on this project.
Thanks for the response. I agree with some of your points and disagree with others.
To preface this, I wouldnât make a claim like âthe 3rd edition was representative for X definition of the wordâ or âI was satisfied with the Handbook when we published itâ (I left CEA with 19 pages of notes on changes I was considering). Thereâs plenty of good criticism that one could make of it, from almost any perspective.
I agree.
Many of these have ideas that can be applied to either perspective. But the actual things they discuss are mostly near-term causes.
âOn Fringe Ideasâ focuses on wild animal welfare.
âWe are in triageâ ends with a discussion of global development (an area where the triage metaphor makes far more intuitive sense than it does for longtermist areas).
âRadical Empathyâ is almost entirely focused on specific neartermist causes.
âCan one person make a differenceâ features three people who made a big difference â two doctors and Petrov. Long-term impact gets a brief shout-out at the end, but the impact of each person is measured by how many lives they saved in their own time (or through to the present day).
This is different from e.g. detailed pieces describing causes like malaria prevention or vitamin supplementation. I think thatâs a real gap in the Handbook, and worth addressing.
But it seems to me like anyone who starts the Handbook will get a very strong impression in those first three sections that EA cares a lot about near-term causes, helping people today, helping animals, and tackling measurable problems. That impression matters more to me than cause-specific knowledge (though again, some of that would still be nice!).
However, I may be biased here by my teaching experience. In the two introductory fellowships Iâve facilitated, participants who read these essays spent their first three weeks discussing almost exclusively near-term causes and examples.
I agree that the reading in these sections is more focused. Nonetheless, I still feel like thereâs a decent balance, for reasons that arenât obvious from the content alone:
Most people have a better intuitive sense for neartermist causes and ideas. I found that longtermism (and AI specifically) required more explanation and discussion before people understood them, relative to the causes and ideas mentioned in the first three weeks. Population ethics alone took up most of a week.
âLongtermistâ causes sometimes arenât. I still donât quite understand how we decided to add pandemic prevention to the âlongtermistâ bucket. When that issue came up, people were intensely interested and found the subject relative to their own lives/âthe lives of people they knew.
I wouldnât be surprised if many people in EA (including people in my intro fellowships) saw many of Toby Ordâs âpolicy and research ideasâ as competitive with AMF just for saving people alive today.
I assume there are also people who would see AMF as competitive with many longtermist orgs in terms of improving the future, but Iâd guess they arenât nearly as common.
I donât think Iâve seen Pascalâs Mugging discussed in any non-longtermist context, unless you count actual religion. Do you have an example on hand for where people have applied the idea to a neartermist cause?
I agree. I wouldnât think of that piece as critical of longtermism.
I havenât gone back to check all the material, but I assume youâre correct. I think it would be useful to add more content on this point.
This is another case where my experience as a facilitator warps my perspective; I think both of my groups discussed this, so it didnât occur to me that it wasnât an âofficialâ topic.
I agree. That wasnât the purpose of selecting test readers; I mentioned them only because some of them happened to make useful suggestions on this front.
I wrote to four people, two of whom (including Michael) sent useful feedback . The other two also responded; one said they were busy, the other seemed excited/âinterested but never wound up sending anything.
A 50% useful-response rate isnât bad, and makes me wish Iâd sent more of those emails. My excuse is the dumb-but-true âI was busy, and this was one project among manyâ.
(As an aside, if someone wanted to draft a near-term-focused version of the Handbook, I think theyâd have a very good shot at getting a grant.)
Iâd probably have asked âwhat else should we include?â rather than âis this current stuff good?â, but I agree with this in spirit.
(As another aside, if you specifically have ideas for material youâd like to see included, Iâd be happy to pass them along to CEA â or you could contact someone like Max or Lizka.)
Thatâs helpful anecdata about your teaching experience. Iâd love to see a more rigorous and thorough study of how participants respond to the fellowships to see how representative your experience is.
Iâm pretty sure Iâve heard it used in the context of a scenario questioning whether torture is justified to stop the threat dirty bomb thatâs about to go off in a city.
Thatâs a good excuse :) I misinterpreted Michaelâs previous comment as saying his feedback didnât get incorporated at all. This process seems better than Iâd realized (though still short of what Iâd have liked to see after the negative reaction to the 2nd edition).
GiveWellâs Giving 101 would be a great fit for global poverty. For animal welfare content, Iâd suggest making the first chapter of Animal Liberation part of the essential content (or at least further reading), rather than part of the âmore to exploreâ content. But my meta-suggestion would be to ask people who specialize in doing poverty/âanimal outreach for suggestions.