much more cost-effectively that GiveWell’s top charities, whose sign of impact is unclear to me
This is a very bold claim, made quite casually! Especially in light of:
There is a sense in which feedback loops are short.
I would evaluate these options through the GiveWell criteria—evidence of effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and room for more funding.
For the GiveWell charities, they score very highly on each metric. For example, they are each supported by multiple randomised control trials. By contrast, the indicators you mention are weak proxy indicators (I think you should also have added ‘counterfactual’ to each one—a new arms control treaty isn’t an achievement for a donor unless it would likely not have happened without extra funding).
If I could challenge you, I think this looks like motivated reasoning, in that I think these are probably ‘decent proxy indicators if you’ve already decided to donate solely within longtermism’. But I think it’s very tough to maintain that longtermist giving opportunities stack up next to neartermist ones, if compared on the same metrics.
To summarise: global health giving opportunities—exceptionally strong evidence of effectiveness; rigorous cost-effectiveness analyses; room for more funding updated annually with high levels of transparency.
Longtermist giving opportunities (as mentioned here) - some (weak) proxy indicators show progress, some don’t (e.g. I’m not aware of any counterfactual nuclear arms control treaties in the past 10 years); therefore speculative cost-effectiveness, because little evidence of effectiveness; individual projects likely to have room for more funding, but as a sector much less room for more funding (e.g. you could deploy billions via GiveDirectly, but Open Phil only managed to deploy <$1bn to longtermist causes last year).
As effective giving organisations should (at least in theory) be agnostic about cause area and focussed on ‘effectiveness’, I would be surprised if any raised the majority of their donations for longtermist causes, which have significant challenges around evidence of effectiveness/tractability.
This [it is unclear whether GiveWell’s top charities are good/bad] is a very bold claim, made quite casually!
Sorry. I had givensomecontext in the post (not sure you noticed it). You can find more in section 4 of Mogensen 2019 (discussed here):
In this section, I argue that an agent whose utility function is a positive linear transform of impartial good will not prefer donating to Against Malaria Foundation over Make-A-Wish Foundation if she responds to cluelessness with imprecision and satisfies the maximality rule, provided that she shares our evidence. Section 4.1 emphasizes the depth of our uncertainty concerning the indirect effects of donating to Against Malaria Foundation. Section 4.2 reflects on the lessons to be drawn in applying the maximality rule to a choice between these organizations.
You say that:
I would evaluate these options through the GiveWell criteria—evidence of effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and room for more funding.
I believe those criteria are great, and wish effective giving organisations applied them to their own operations. For example, doing retrospective and prospective cost-effectiveneness analyses.
For the GiveWell charities, they score very highly on each metric.
My concern is that GiveWell’s metrics (roughly, lives saved per dollar[1]) may well not capture most of the expected effects of GiveWell’s interventions. For example:
I think GiveWell’s top charities may be anything from very harmful to very beneficial accounting for the effects on terrestrial arthropods (e.g. insects[1]).
In comparing Make-A-Wish Foundation unfavourably to Against Malaria Foundation, Singer (2015) observes that “saving a life is better than making a wish come true.” (6) Arguably, there is a qualifier missing from this statement: ‘all else being equal.’ Saving a child’s life need not be better than fulfilling a child’s wish if the indirect effects of saving the child’s life [e.g. on animals] are worse than those of fulfilling the wish.
Feel free to check section 4.1 for many positive and negative consequences of increasing and decreasing population size.
By contrast, the indicators you mention are weak proxy indicators
Note I am not saying the relationships are simple or linear, just that they very much matter. Without nuclear weapons, there would be no risk of nuclear war. In any case, I agree the correlation between longtermist outcomes (e.g. lower extinction risk) and the measurable outputs of longtermist interventions (e.g. less nuclear weapons) will tend to be lower than the correlation between neartermist outcomes (e.g. deaths averted) and the measurable outputs of neartermist interventions (e.g. distributed bednets). However, my concern is that the correlation between neartermist outcomes (e.g. deaths averted) and ultimately relevant outcomes (welfare across all space and time, not just very nearterm welfare of humans) is quite poor.
If I could challenge you, I think this looks like motivated reasoning, in that I think these are probably ‘decent proxy indicators if you’ve already decided to donate solely within longtermism’.
Fair! For what is worth, I was not commited to donating solely to longtermist interventions from the onset. I used to split my donations evenly across all 4 EA Funds, and wrotearticles about donating to GiveWell’s top charities on the online newspaper of my former university.
Longtermist giving opportunities (as mentioned here) - some (weak) proxy indicators show progress, some don’t (e.g. I’m not aware of any counterfactual nuclear arms control treaties in the past 10 years); therefore speculative cost-effectiveness, because little evidence of effectiveness; individual projects likely to have room for more funding, but as a sector much less room for more funding (e.g. you could deploy billions via GiveDirectly, but Open Phil only managed to deploy <$1bn to longtermist causes last year).
I agree longtermist organisations should do more to assess their cost-effectiveness and room for more funding. One factor is that longtermist organisations tend to be smaller (not Nuclear Threat Initiative), so they have less resources to do such analyses (although arguably still enough).
In reality, according to GiveWell’s moral weights, the value of saving lives increases until an age of around 10 (if I recall correctly), and then starts decreasing. Economic benefits are also taken into account.
Thanks for engaging so positively here.
A couple of quick reactions:
This is a very bold claim, made quite casually! Especially in light of:
I would evaluate these options through the GiveWell criteria—evidence of effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and room for more funding.
For the GiveWell charities, they score very highly on each metric. For example, they are each supported by multiple randomised control trials. By contrast, the indicators you mention are weak proxy indicators (I think you should also have added ‘counterfactual’ to each one—a new arms control treaty isn’t an achievement for a donor unless it would likely not have happened without extra funding).
If I could challenge you, I think this looks like motivated reasoning, in that I think these are probably ‘decent proxy indicators if you’ve already decided to donate solely within longtermism’. But I think it’s very tough to maintain that longtermist giving opportunities stack up next to neartermist ones, if compared on the same metrics.
To summarise: global health giving opportunities—exceptionally strong evidence of effectiveness; rigorous cost-effectiveness analyses; room for more funding updated annually with high levels of transparency.
Longtermist giving opportunities (as mentioned here) - some (weak) proxy indicators show progress, some don’t (e.g. I’m not aware of any counterfactual nuclear arms control treaties in the past 10 years); therefore speculative cost-effectiveness, because little evidence of effectiveness; individual projects likely to have room for more funding, but as a sector much less room for more funding (e.g. you could deploy billions via GiveDirectly, but Open Phil only managed to deploy <$1bn to longtermist causes last year).
As effective giving organisations should (at least in theory) be agnostic about cause area and focussed on ‘effectiveness’, I would be surprised if any raised the majority of their donations for longtermist causes, which have significant challenges around evidence of effectiveness/tractability.
Likewise!
Sorry. I had given some context in the post (not sure you noticed it). You can find more in section 4 of Mogensen 2019 (discussed here):
You say that:
I believe those criteria are great, and wish effective giving organisations applied them to their own operations. For example, doing retrospective and prospective cost-effectiveneness analyses.
My concern is that GiveWell’s metrics (roughly, lives saved per dollar[1]) may well not capture most of the expected effects of GiveWell’s interventions. For example:
From Mogensen 2019:
Feel free to check section 4.1 for many positive and negative consequences of increasing and decreasing population size.
Note I am not saying the relationships are simple or linear, just that they very much matter. Without nuclear weapons, there would be no risk of nuclear war. In any case, I agree the correlation between longtermist outcomes (e.g. lower extinction risk) and the measurable outputs of longtermist interventions (e.g. less nuclear weapons) will tend to be lower than the correlation between neartermist outcomes (e.g. deaths averted) and the measurable outputs of neartermist interventions (e.g. distributed bednets). However, my concern is that the correlation between neartermist outcomes (e.g. deaths averted) and ultimately relevant outcomes (welfare across all space and time, not just very nearterm welfare of humans) is quite poor.
Fair! For what is worth, I was not commited to donating solely to longtermist interventions from the onset. I used to split my donations evenly across all 4 EA Funds, and wrote articles about donating to GiveWell’s top charities on the online newspaper of my former university.
I agree longtermist organisations should do more to assess their cost-effectiveness and room for more funding. One factor is that longtermist organisations tend to be smaller (not Nuclear Threat Initiative), so they have less resources to do such analyses (although arguably still enough).
In reality, according to GiveWell’s moral weights, the value of saving lives increases until an age of around 10 (if I recall correctly), and then starts decreasing. Economic benefits are also taken into account.