How do we most efficiently allocate limited resources to do the most good?
This has several advantages in the current regime over “what is the most cost-effective way to help people?”:
“Cost-effective” can in theory be inclusive of all costs, but in practice the framing points people too quickly to thinking of financial costs, whereas plausibly we should worry about other costs more (most obviously EA human capital, but also plausibly stuff like branding, connections, human capital of adjacent people, etc).
“most cost-effective way” implies a bit of a single-player game, whereas maybe group coordination and total allocation is a more important framing.
“helps people” may run into issues with population ethics, not sure.
But I recognize this is still mostly a refinement of “what is the most cost-effective way to help people?” and maybe it’s better to think of a more radically different question, as the prompt and some of the other answers may have suggested.
I would add that we should be trying to increase the pool of resources. This includes broad outreach like Giving What We Can and the 80k podcast, as well as convincing EAs to be more ambitious, direct outreach to very wealthy people, and so on.
I would even replace “efficient” with “effective”. I think efficiency can also imply cost-effectiveness whereas effectiveness is a bit broader (which may not always be better) but feels a bit more accurate
I interpret “what is the most cost-effective way to help people?” and “How do we most efficiently allocate limited resources to do the most good?” as equivalent.
I think in practice these questions will point people in different ways, not sure. (For example I noticed all the examples your comments mention to be referencing financial costs, which I think is maybe due to suboptimal priming).
How do we most efficiently allocate limited resources to do the most good?
This has several advantages in the current regime over “what is the most cost-effective way to help people?”:
“Cost-effective” can in theory be inclusive of all costs, but in practice the framing points people too quickly to thinking of financial costs, whereas plausibly we should worry about other costs more (most obviously EA human capital, but also plausibly stuff like branding, connections, human capital of adjacent people, etc).
“most cost-effective way” implies a bit of a single-player game, whereas maybe group coordination and total allocation is a more important framing.
“helps people” may run into issues with population ethics, not sure.
But I recognize this is still mostly a refinement of “what is the most cost-effective way to help people?” and maybe it’s better to think of a more radically different question, as the prompt and some of the other answers may have suggested.
I would add that we should be trying to increase the pool of resources. This includes broad outreach like Giving What We Can and the 80k podcast, as well as convincing EAs to be more ambitious, direct outreach to very wealthy people, and so on.
I would even replace “efficient” with “effective”. I think efficiency can also imply cost-effectiveness whereas effectiveness is a bit broader (which may not always be better) but feels a bit more accurate
I interpret “what is the most cost-effective way to help people?” and “How do we most efficiently allocate limited resources to do the most good?” as equivalent.
I think in practice these questions will point people in different ways, not sure. (For example I noticed all the examples your comments mention to be referencing financial costs, which I think is maybe due to suboptimal priming).