″...are ignored as an area of funding because EA metrics can’t measure their ‘effectiveness.’”
Yes seems reasonable not to fund stuff until you know effectiveness
The EA movement doesn’t ignore interventions that can’t be easily measured, though. As I stated in another comment, what matters is being able to estimate impact, not being able to measure it directly e.g. through RCTs.
“Or how funding an ‘effective’ organization’s expansion into another country encourages colonialist interventions that impose elite institutional structures and sideline community groups whose local histories and situated knowledges are invaluable guides to meaningful action.”
So while I think that it’s possible to overquanify, yeah I probably am skeptical that local histories are going to outcompete an effective intervention.
I actually think that local knowledge, indigenous knowledge, etc. can be helpful for informing the design of interventions, but they’re best used as an input to the scientific method, not a substitute for it.
Aside: I think these paragraphs are examples of opportunities for “EA judo”: one can respond, as I did, that they’re disagreeing with the reasoning methods that EA allegedly uses without disagreeing with the core principle that doing good effectively is important.
The EA movement doesn’t ignore interventions that can’t be easily measured, though. As I stated in another comment, what matters is being able to estimate impact, not being able to measure it directly e.g. through RCTs.
I actually think that local knowledge, indigenous knowledge, etc. can be helpful for informing the design of interventions, but they’re best used as an input to the scientific method, not a substitute for it.
Aside: I think these paragraphs are examples of opportunities for “EA judo”: one can respond, as I did, that they’re disagreeing with the reasoning methods that EA allegedly uses without disagreeing with the core principle that doing good effectively is important.