Yeah, Iâm not really bothered by objections at the abstract level of âbut you can never account for every side effectâ, since as you say thereâs no real reason to think they are net negative. (I get the feeling that he thinks âthatâs not the point you evil, ends-justifies-the-means utilitarians, if your doing harm you should stop, whether or not it leads to some greater good!â But I think thatâs confusing the view that you shouldnât deliberately do bad things for the greater good, with the implausible claim that no one should ever doing anything that was a necessary step in a bad thing happening. The latter would just recommend never doing anything significant, or probably even insignificant, ever.)
What does bother me is if:
GiveWell is not properly accounting for or being honest about negative side effects that it actually does know about.
GiveWell is overstating the evidence for the reliability/âmagnitude of the primary effectd the interventions they recommend are designed to bring about.
I got the impression he was also endorsing 1 and 2, though itâs not exactly giving a detailed defence of them.
I think his argument is mainly âaid is waaayyyy more unpredictable and difficult to measure than your neat little tables crediting yourselves with how efficient you are at saving lives suggestâ, with GiveWell ironically getting the biggest bashing because of how explicit they are about highlighting limitations in their small print. Virtually all the negative side effects and recommendation retractions heâs highlighted come straight from their presentations of their evidence on their website. Heâs also insistent they need to balance the positives of lifesaving against harm from nets being redeployed for fishing, but ironically the only people Iâve seen agree with him on that point are EAs.
Itâs less an argument theyâre not properly accounting for stuff and more that the summaries with the donation button below sound a lot more confident about impact than the summaries with the details for people that actually want to read them. Iâm reminded of Holdenâs outspoken criticism of big NGOs simplifying their message to âdo x for $y per monthâ being âdonor illusionâ back in the dayâŚ
I guess I feel âwhat are they supposed to do, not put their bottom-line best estimate in the summary?â. Maybe heâd be satisfied if all the summaries said âour best guess is probably off by quite a lot, but sadly this is unavoidable, we still think your donations will on average do more good if you listen to us than if you try to find the best choice yourselfâ?
Yeah, Iâm not really bothered by objections at the abstract level of âbut you can never account for every side effectâ, since as you say thereâs no real reason to think they are net negative. (I get the feeling that he thinks âthatâs not the point you evil, ends-justifies-the-means utilitarians, if your doing harm you should stop, whether or not it leads to some greater good!â But I think thatâs confusing the view that you shouldnât deliberately do bad things for the greater good, with the implausible claim that no one should ever doing anything that was a necessary step in a bad thing happening. The latter would just recommend never doing anything significant, or probably even insignificant, ever.)
What does bother me is if:
GiveWell is not properly accounting for or being honest about negative side effects that it actually does know about.
GiveWell is overstating the evidence for the reliability/âmagnitude of the primary effectd the interventions they recommend are designed to bring about.
I got the impression he was also endorsing 1 and 2, though itâs not exactly giving a detailed defence of them.
I think his argument is mainly âaid is waaayyyy more unpredictable and difficult to measure than your neat little tables crediting yourselves with how efficient you are at saving lives suggestâ, with GiveWell ironically getting the biggest bashing because of how explicit they are about highlighting limitations in their small print. Virtually all the negative side effects and recommendation retractions heâs highlighted come straight from their presentations of their evidence on their website. Heâs also insistent they need to balance the positives of lifesaving against harm from nets being redeployed for fishing, but ironically the only people Iâve seen agree with him on that point are EAs.
Itâs less an argument theyâre not properly accounting for stuff and more that the summaries with the donation button below sound a lot more confident about impact than the summaries with the details for people that actually want to read them. Iâm reminded of Holdenâs outspoken criticism of big NGOs simplifying their message to âdo x for $y per monthâ being âdonor illusionâ back in the dayâŚ
I guess I feel âwhat are they supposed to do, not put their bottom-line best estimate in the summary?â. Maybe heâd be satisfied if all the summaries said âour best guess is probably off by quite a lot, but sadly this is unavoidable, we still think your donations will on average do more good if you listen to us than if you try to find the best choice yourselfâ?