To grasp how disastrously an apparently altruistic movement has run off course, consider that the value of organizations that provide healthy vegan food within their underserved communities 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 (though I’ve now read this example in the book and they might be cost effective since they seem to be well attended)
Or how covering the costs of caring for survivors of industrial animal farming in sanctuaries is seen as a bad use of funds.
Yeah seems right
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.
So I guess I predict I’m gonna think “a couple of useful examples, boy these people don’t like us, yeah we didn’t want to do that anyway, okay yeah no that’s an actual fair critcism”
And if we don’t respond, it will be all “you didn’t read our book you don’t like criticism”
And if I respond like that it will be “you haven’t really engaged with it”.
So yeah, unsure how to respond. I guess, do I think that if I read and wrote a response it would be interestingly engaged with? No, not really—the books tone is combative, as if it’s doing the least possible work to engage but wants to say it tried.
So yeah, I have little confidence that reading this book will start an actual discussion. Maybe I’ll talk to the authors on twitter xxox
″...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.
That seems like a reasonable assessment. I do think the authors would be willing to discuss their pieces, but I do not know how worthwhile it would be (though, admittedly, I think a public debate could make for an interesting event).
So I’m tempted to read it because I like to engage with criticism that someone has spent a long time writing, but having read the article they wrote to preface it (https://blog.oup.com/2022/12/the-predictably-grievous-harms-of-effective-altruism/) I imagine I’m gonna hear the flaws and be like “no these are features, not bugs” .
From the above article:
Yes seems reasonable not to fund stuff until you know effectiveness (though I’ve now read this example in the book and they might be cost effective since they seem to be well attended)
Yeah seems right
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.
So I guess I predict I’m gonna think “a couple of useful examples, boy these people don’t like us, yeah we didn’t want to do that anyway, okay yeah no that’s an actual fair critcism”
And if we don’t respond, it will be all “you didn’t read our book you don’t like criticism”
And if I respond like that it will be “you haven’t really engaged with it”.
So yeah, unsure how to respond. I guess, do I think that if I read and wrote a response it would be interestingly engaged with? No, not really—the books tone is combative, as if it’s doing the least possible work to engage but wants to say it tried.
So yeah, I have little confidence that reading this book will start an actual discussion. Maybe I’ll talk to the authors on twitter xxox
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.
That seems like a reasonable assessment. I do think the authors would be willing to discuss their pieces, but I do not know how worthwhile it would be (though, admittedly, I think a public debate could make for an interesting event).