I think his argument is mainly “aid is waaayyyy more unpredictable and difficult to measure than your neat little tables crediting yourselves with how efficient you are at saving lives suggest”, 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 he’s highlighted come straight from their presentations of their evidence on their website. He’s also insistent they need to balance the positives of lifesaving against harm from nets being redeployed for fishing, but ironically the only people I’ve seen agree with him on that point are EAs.
It’s less an argument they’re 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. I’m reminded of Holden’s outspoken criticism of big NGOs simplifying their message to “do x for $y per month” being “donor illusion” back in the day…
I guess I feel “what are they supposed to do, not put their bottom-line best estimate in the summary?”. Maybe he’d be satisfied if all the summaries said “our 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 yourself”?
I think his argument is mainly “aid is waaayyyy more unpredictable and difficult to measure than your neat little tables crediting yourselves with how efficient you are at saving lives suggest”, 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 he’s highlighted come straight from their presentations of their evidence on their website. He’s also insistent they need to balance the positives of lifesaving against harm from nets being redeployed for fishing, but ironically the only people I’ve seen agree with him on that point are EAs.
It’s less an argument they’re 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. I’m reminded of Holden’s outspoken criticism of big NGOs simplifying their message to “do x for $y per month” being “donor illusion” back in the day…
I guess I feel “what are they supposed to do, not put their bottom-line best estimate in the summary?”. Maybe he’d be satisfied if all the summaries said “our 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 yourself”?