I agree with this essay in principle, but I think the examples of potential top domestic charities are poor. It’s not going to be possible to get broad popular agreement on which political party is the “better” one.
Moreover, the amount of time that will need to go into assessing what are the best domestic charities will probably have to be massive as these charities will be much harder to assess and the evidence bases will be fewer. I’d suggest we start by finding all the RCTs on domestic charities and start looking for cost-effectiveness there.
I think another good starting point will be the organizations suggested by GiveWell labs (see http://blog.givewell.org/2013/09/26/givewell-labs-update-2/). Things like geoengeneering research, criminal justice, and open science are pretty domestic and yet still potentially very high impact. Same with, perhaps, x-risk reduction or 80K Hours.
Thanks for the comment, Peter. I agree that we couldn’t get broad popular agreement on which political party is the better one, but I’m pretty sure we could get about 50% agreement! In the UK at least, people who get into EA are usually either on the left or don’t have political leanings (though with some notable exceptions, like Ben Hoskin). So I think that if you promoted funding GOTV for the Democrats/Labour, you’d only alienate something like 10% of potential EAs.
And we wouldn’t need to put massive amounts of time into it. Even a first-pass guess at a charity that seems particularly good for both the home nation and the world would generate most of the benefits I list above. (I think that many people would also be much happier donating to foreign countries if it also benefited the home country).
Agree on GW labs, though I think that geoengineering research, open science, 80k, xrisk reduction, are even less likely to get taken seriously than political funding.
Also, I should have said I’m not suggesting this as “the most important thing to be doing right now”—just something I think would be worthwhile that I used to think wouldn’t have been worthwhile.
I agree with this essay in principle, but I think the examples of potential top domestic charities are poor. It’s not going to be possible to get broad popular agreement on which political party is the “better” one.
Moreover, the amount of time that will need to go into assessing what are the best domestic charities will probably have to be massive as these charities will be much harder to assess and the evidence bases will be fewer. I’d suggest we start by finding all the RCTs on domestic charities and start looking for cost-effectiveness there.
I think another good starting point will be the organizations suggested by GiveWell labs (see http://blog.givewell.org/2013/09/26/givewell-labs-update-2/). Things like geoengeneering research, criminal justice, and open science are pretty domestic and yet still potentially very high impact. Same with, perhaps, x-risk reduction or 80K Hours.
Thanks for the comment, Peter. I agree that we couldn’t get broad popular agreement on which political party is the better one, but I’m pretty sure we could get about 50% agreement! In the UK at least, people who get into EA are usually either on the left or don’t have political leanings (though with some notable exceptions, like Ben Hoskin). So I think that if you promoted funding GOTV for the Democrats/Labour, you’d only alienate something like 10% of potential EAs.
And we wouldn’t need to put massive amounts of time into it. Even a first-pass guess at a charity that seems particularly good for both the home nation and the world would generate most of the benefits I list above. (I think that many people would also be much happier donating to foreign countries if it also benefited the home country).
Agree on GW labs, though I think that geoengineering research, open science, 80k, xrisk reduction, are even less likely to get taken seriously than political funding.
Also, I should have said I’m not suggesting this as “the most important thing to be doing right now”—just something I think would be worthwhile that I used to think wouldn’t have been worthwhile.