As explained (EA Forum link; HT Edo Arad) by Owen Cotton-Barratt back in 2014, there are at least two meanings of ācause areaā. My impression is that since then, effective altruists have not really distinguished between these different meanings, which suggests to me that some combination of the following things are happening: (1) the distinction isnāt too important in practice; (2) people are using ācause areaā as a shorthand for something like āthe established cause areas in effective altruism, plus some extra hard-to-specify stuffā; (3) people are confused about what a ācause areaā even is, but lack the metacognitive abilities to notice this.
As noted above, personally, I usually find it most useful to think about cause areas in terms of a few broad cause areas which describe what class of beneficiaries one is aiming to help.
I think itād be useful to also āreviveā Owenās suggested term/āconcept of āAn intervention area, i.e. a cluster of interventions which are related and share some characteristicsā, as clearly distinguished from a cause area.
E.g., I think itād be useful to be able to say something like āPolitical advocacy is an intervention area that could be useful for a range of cause areas, such as animal welfare and longtermism. It might be valuable for some EAs to specialise in political advocacy in a relatively cause-neutral way, lending their expertise to various different EA-aligned efforts.ā (Iāve said similar things before, but it will probably be easier now that I have the term āintervention areaā in mind.)
I really agree with this kind of distinction. It seems to me that there are several different kinds of properties by which to cluster interventions, including:
Type of work done (say, Political Advocacy)
Instrumental subgoals (say, Agriculture R&D (which could include supporting work, not just research)). (Iām not sure if itās reasonable to separate these from cause areas as goals)
Epistemic beliefs (say, interventions supported by RCTs for GH&D)
(It seems harder than I thought to think about different ways to cluster. Absent of contrary arguments, I might purpose defining intervention areas as the type of work done)
As noted above, personally, I usually find it most useful to think about cause areas in terms of a few broad cause areas which describe what class of beneficiaries one is aiming to help.
I think itād be useful to also āreviveā Owenās suggested term/āconcept of āAn intervention area, i.e. a cluster of interventions which are related and share some characteristicsā, as clearly distinguished from a cause area.
E.g., I think itād be useful to be able to say something like āPolitical advocacy is an intervention area that could be useful for a range of cause areas, such as animal welfare and longtermism. It might be valuable for some EAs to specialise in political advocacy in a relatively cause-neutral way, lending their expertise to various different EA-aligned efforts.ā (Iāve said similar things before, but it will probably be easier now that I have the term āintervention areaā in mind.)
I really agree with this kind of distinction. It seems to me that there are several different kinds of properties by which to cluster interventions, including:
Type of work done (say, Political Advocacy)
Instrumental subgoals (say, Agriculture R&D (which could include supporting work, not just research)). (Iām not sure if itās reasonable to separate these from cause areas as goals)
Epistemic beliefs (say, interventions supported by RCTs for GH&D)
(It seems harder than I thought to think about different ways to cluster. Absent of contrary arguments, I might purpose defining intervention areas as the type of work done)