For many CE-incubated charities, the obvious counterfactual donation would be to GiveWell top charities, and that’s a really high bar.
I consider the possibility that a lot of ALLFED’s potential value proposition comes from a low probability of saving hundreds of millions to billions of lives in scenarios that would counterfactually neither lead to extinction nor produce major continuing effects thousands of years down the road.
If that is so, it is plausible that this kind of value proposition may not be particularly well suited to many neartermist donors (for whom the chain of contingencies leading to impact may be too speculative for their comfort level) or to many strong longtermist donors (for whom the effects thousands to millions of years down the road may be weaker than for other options seen as mitigating extinction risk more).
If you had a moral parliament of 50 neartermists & 50 longtermists that could fund only one organization (and by a 2⁄3 majority vote), one with this kind of potential impact model might do very well!
For many CE-incubated charities, the obvious counterfactual donation would be to GiveWell top charities, and that’s a really high bar.
I think this is right and important. Possible additional layer: some donors are more comfortable with experimental or hits based giving than others. Those people disproportionately go into x-risk. The donors remaining in global poverty/health are both more adverse to uncertainty and have options to avoid it (both objectively, and vibe-wise)
I really agree with the first point, and the really high bar is the main reason all of these projects have room for more funding.
I somewhat disagree with the second point: my impression is that many donors are interested in mitigating non-existential global catastrophic risks (e.g. natural pandemics, climate change), but I don’t have much data to support this.
I don’t think many donors are interested in mitigating non-existential global catastrophic risks is necessarily inconsistent with the potential explanation for why organizations like ALLFED may get substantially more public praise than funding. It’s plausible to me that an org in that position might be unusually good at rating highly on many donors’ charts, without being unusually good at rating at the very top of the donors’ lists:
There’s no real limit on how many orgs one can praise, and preventing non-existential GCRs may win enough points on donors’ scoresheets to receive praise from the two groups I described above (focused neartermists and focused longtermists) in addition to its actual donors.
However, many small/mid-size donors may fund only their very top donation opportunities (e.g., top two, top five, etc.)
My thoughts were:
For many CE-incubated charities, the obvious counterfactual donation would be to GiveWell top charities, and that’s a really high bar.
I consider the possibility that a lot of ALLFED’s potential value proposition comes from a low probability of saving hundreds of millions to billions of lives in scenarios that would counterfactually neither lead to extinction nor produce major continuing effects thousands of years down the road.
If that is so, it is plausible that this kind of value proposition may not be particularly well suited to many neartermist donors (for whom the chain of contingencies leading to impact may be too speculative for their comfort level) or to many strong longtermist donors (for whom the effects thousands to millions of years down the road may be weaker than for other options seen as mitigating extinction risk more).
If you had a moral parliament of 50 neartermists & 50 longtermists that could fund only one organization (and by a 2⁄3 majority vote), one with this kind of potential impact model might do very well!
I think this is right and important. Possible additional layer: some donors are more comfortable with experimental or hits based giving than others. Those people disproportionately go into x-risk. The donors remaining in global poverty/health are both more adverse to uncertainty and have options to avoid it (both objectively, and vibe-wise)
I really agree with the first point, and the really high bar is the main reason all of these projects have room for more funding.
I somewhat disagree with the second point: my impression is that many donors are interested in mitigating non-existential global catastrophic risks (e.g. natural pandemics, climate change), but I don’t have much data to support this.
I don’t think many donors are interested in mitigating non-existential global catastrophic risks is necessarily inconsistent with the potential explanation for why organizations like ALLFED may get substantially more public praise than funding. It’s plausible to me that an org in that position might be unusually good at rating highly on many donors’ charts, without being unusually good at rating at the very top of the donors’ lists:
There’s no real limit on how many orgs one can praise, and preventing non-existential GCRs may win enough points on donors’ scoresheets to receive praise from the two groups I described above (focused neartermists and focused longtermists) in addition to its actual donors.
However, many small/mid-size donors may fund only their very top donation opportunities (e.g., top two, top five, etc.)