Thanks for writing this! Your work sounds super interesting. You write, “ But you could be rewarded by the euphoric sense of revelation. Some of that sense may even be authentic; most of it will be fool’s gold.” What are some times you got that euphoric sense in your research for HLI?
I’ll assume you’re asking about the times in which something was truly revealed to me, and I wasn’t (as is commonly the case) just confused?
In that case, I’d say the top realizations are:
Most meta-analyses are limited in their usefulness for comparing the effectiveness of interventions. Because few papers study where most of the impact happens: over time and in the rest of the recipient’s household or community. If we don’t know what happens over time or to the whole family, I don’t think we can confidently compare the effectiveness of interventions.
When replicating existing analyses, appreciating that there are more elegant methods to estimate and communicate cost-effectiveness than what appears to be state of the art in EA circles.
Finally, understanding that we don’t have a clear framework for deciding which measures or proxies of wellbeing are the best. There also appear to be straightforward ways to make progress here, but this has been little explored. And in general, we don’t do “philosophical robustness checks” even though our analysis/conclusions in the global wellbeing space often rely heavily on the philosophical view we endorse. My view here is that our global wellbeing priorities won’t conveniently converge across proxies of wellbeing (income, DALYs, SWB) or philosophical views of the badness of death or wellbeing.
I’ll probably try and expand on these more in future posts.
Happy to talk more or arrange a call if you’d like!
Thanks for writing this! Your work sounds super interesting. You write, “ But you could be rewarded by the euphoric sense of revelation. Some of that sense may even be authentic; most of it will be fool’s gold.” What are some times you got that euphoric sense in your research for HLI?
I’ll assume you’re asking about the times in which something was truly revealed to me, and I wasn’t (as is commonly the case) just confused?
In that case, I’d say the top realizations are:
Most meta-analyses are limited in their usefulness for comparing the effectiveness of interventions. Because few papers study where most of the impact happens: over time and in the rest of the recipient’s household or community. If we don’t know what happens over time or to the whole family, I don’t think we can confidently compare the effectiveness of interventions.
When replicating existing analyses, appreciating that there are more elegant methods to estimate and communicate cost-effectiveness than what appears to be state of the art in EA circles.
Finally, understanding that we don’t have a clear framework for deciding which measures or proxies of wellbeing are the best. There also appear to be straightforward ways to make progress here, but this has been little explored. And in general, we don’t do “philosophical robustness checks” even though our analysis/conclusions in the global wellbeing space often rely heavily on the philosophical view we endorse. My view here is that our global wellbeing priorities won’t conveniently converge across proxies of wellbeing (income, DALYs, SWB) or philosophical views of the badness of death or wellbeing.
I’ll probably try and expand on these more in future posts.
Happy to talk more or arrange a call if you’d like!