I broadly agree with this, but I’d put it a little differently.
If you think what most matters about your actions is their effect on the long-run future (due to Bostrom-style arguments), then GiveWell recommended charities aren’t especially “proven”, because we have little idea what their long-run effects are. And they weren’t even selected for having good long-run effects in the first place.
One response to this is to argue that the best proxy for having a good long-run impact is having a good short-run impact (e.g. via boosting economic growth).
Another response is to argue that we never have good information about long-run effects, so the best we can do is to focus on the things with the best short-run effects.
I also still think it’s fair to say GiveWell recommended charities are a “safe bet” in the sense that donating to them is very likely to do much more good than spending the money on your own consumption.
One response to this is to argue that the best proxy for having a good long-run impact is having a good short-run impact (e.g. via boosting economic growth).
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is still a speculative claim, so if you make it, you can no longer say you’re following robust evidence only.
I’ve heard this “the best proxy for having a good long-run impact is having a good short-run impact” a couple of times now but I haven’t seen anyone make any argument for it. Could someone provide a link or something? To me it’s not even clear why impact on economy of different charities like Give Directly and AMF should be proportional to their short-term impact.
It’s a controversial claim, and I don’t endorse it. One attempt is this: http://blog.givewell.org/2013/05/15/flow-through-effects/
Which argues that general economic growth and human empowerment has lots of good long-run side effects, so that boosting these is a good thing to do. The main response to this is that that’s true in the past, but if technological progress causes new xrisks, it’s not clear whether it’ll be true in the future.
Another strand of argument is to look at what rules of thumb people who had lots of impact in the past followed, and argue that something like “take really good opportunities to have a lot of short-run impact” seems like a better rule of thumb than “try to figure out what’s going to happen in the long-run future and how you can shape it). I haven’t seen this argued for in writing though.
I broadly agree with this, but I’d put it a little differently.
If you think what most matters about your actions is their effect on the long-run future (due to Bostrom-style arguments), then GiveWell recommended charities aren’t especially “proven”, because we have little idea what their long-run effects are. And they weren’t even selected for having good long-run effects in the first place.
One response to this is to argue that the best proxy for having a good long-run impact is having a good short-run impact (e.g. via boosting economic growth).
Another response is to argue that we never have good information about long-run effects, so the best we can do is to focus on the things with the best short-run effects.
I also still think it’s fair to say GiveWell recommended charities are a “safe bet” in the sense that donating to them is very likely to do much more good than spending the money on your own consumption.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is still a speculative claim, so if you make it, you can no longer say you’re following robust evidence only.
Yes I totally agree. I was just saying what the most common responses are, not agreeing with them.
cf http://effective-altruism.com/ea/qx/two_observations_about_skeptical_vs_speculative/
I’ve heard this “the best proxy for having a good long-run impact is having a good short-run impact” a couple of times now but I haven’t seen anyone make any argument for it. Could someone provide a link or something? To me it’s not even clear why impact on economy of different charities like Give Directly and AMF should be proportional to their short-term impact.
It’s a controversial claim, and I don’t endorse it. One attempt is this: http://blog.givewell.org/2013/05/15/flow-through-effects/ Which argues that general economic growth and human empowerment has lots of good long-run side effects, so that boosting these is a good thing to do. The main response to this is that that’s true in the past, but if technological progress causes new xrisks, it’s not clear whether it’ll be true in the future.
Another strand of argument is to look at what rules of thumb people who had lots of impact in the past followed, and argue that something like “take really good opportunities to have a lot of short-run impact” seems like a better rule of thumb than “try to figure out what’s going to happen in the long-run future and how you can shape it). I haven’t seen this argued for in writing though.
Also there have been arguments that the best way to shape the long-run future might be through “broad” interventions rather than “narrow” ones, and broad interventions are often things that involve doing short-term common sense good, like making people better educated. http://lesswrong.com/lw/hjb/a_proposed_adjustment_to_the_astronomical_waste/ http://effective-altruism.com/ea/r6/what_is_a_broad_intervention_and_what_is_a_narrow/