Use of expected value when error bars are enormously wide is stupid and deceptive
EA has too many eggs in the one basket that is GiveWell’s research work
GiveWell under-emphasises the risks of their interventions and overstates their certainty of their benefits
EA is full of young aspiring heroes who think they’re the main character in a story about saving the world
Longtermism has no feedback mechanism and so is entirely speculative, not evidence-based
Mob think is real (this forum still gives people with more karma more votes for some reason)
But then:
His only suggestions for a better way to reallocate power/​wealth/​opportunity from rich to poor are: 1. acknowledging that it’s complex and 2. consulting with local communities (neither are new ideas, both are often already done)
Ignores the very established, non-EA-affiliated body of development economists using RCTs; Duflo and Banerjee won the Nobel memorial economics prize for this and Dan Karlan who started Innovations for Poverty Action now runs USAID. EA might be cringe but these people aren’t.
Many good points:
Use of expected value when error bars are enormously wide is stupid and deceptive
EA has too many eggs in the one basket that is GiveWell’s research work
GiveWell under-emphasises the risks of their interventions and overstates their certainty of their benefits
EA is full of young aspiring heroes who think they’re the main character in a story about saving the world
Longtermism has no feedback mechanism and so is entirely speculative, not evidence-based
Mob think is real (this forum still gives people with more karma more votes for some reason)
But then:
His only suggestions for a better way to reallocate power/​wealth/​opportunity from rich to poor are: 1. acknowledging that it’s complex and 2. consulting with local communities (neither are new ideas, both are often already done)
Ignores the very established, non-EA-affiliated body of development economists using RCTs; Duflo and Banerjee won the Nobel memorial economics prize for this and Dan Karlan who started Innovations for Poverty Action now runs USAID. EA might be cringe but these people aren’t.
just fyi Dean Karlan doesn’t run USAID, he’s Chief Economist. Samatha Power is the (chief) administrator of USAID.