Good stuff. I haven’t spent that much time looking at HLIs moral weights work but I think the answer is “Something is wrong with how you’ve constructed weights, HLI is in fact weighing mental health harder than SoGive”. I think a complete answer to this question requires me checking up on your calculations carefully, but I haven’t done so yet, so it’s possible that this is right.
If if were true that HLI found anything on the order of roughly doubling someone’s consumption improved well being as much as averting 1 case of depression, that would be very important as it would mean that SoGive moral weights fail some basic sanity checks. It would imply that we should raise our moral weight on cash-doubling to at least match the cost of therapy even under a purely subjective-well-being oriented framework to weighting. (why not pay 200 to double income, if it’s as good as averting depression and you would pay 200 to avert depression?) This seems implausible.
I haven’t actually been directly researching the comparative moral weights aspect, personally—I’ve been focusing primarily on <what’s the impact of therapy on depression in terms of effect size> rather than on the “what should the moral weights be” question (though I have put some attention to the “how to translate effect sizes into subjective intuitions” question, but that’s not quite the same thing). That said when I have more time I will look more deeply into this and check if our moral weights are failing some sort of sanity check on this order, but, I don’t think that they are.
Regarding the more general question of “where would we stand if we altered our moral weights to be something else”, ask me again in a month or so when all the spreadsheets are finalized, moral weights should be relatively easy to adjust once the analysis is done.
(as sanjay alludes to in the other thread, I do think all this is a somewhat separate discussion from the GWWC list—my main point with the GWWC list was that StrongMinds is not in the big picture actually super out of place with the others, in terms of how evidence-backed it is relative to the others, especially when you consider the big picture of the background academic literature about the intervention rather than their internal data. But I wanted to address the moral weights issue directly as it does seem like an important and separate point.)
that would be very important as it would mean that SoGive moral weights fail some basic sanity checks
I would recommend my post here. My opinion is—yes—SoGive’s moral weights do fail a basic sanity check.
1 year of averted depression is 4 income doublings 1 additional year of life (using GW life-expectancies for over 5s) is 1.95 income doublings.
ie SoGive would thinks depression is worse than death. Maybe this isn’t quite a “sanity check” but I doubt many people have that moral view.
I do think all this is a somewhat separate discussion from the GWWC list
I think cost-effectiveness is very important for this. StrongMinds isn’t so obviously great that we don’t need to consider the cost.
my main point with the GWWC list was that StrongMinds is not in the big picture actually super out of place with the others, in terms of how evidence-backed it is relative to the others, especially when you consider the big picture of the background academic literature about the intervention rather than their internal data
Yes, this is a great point which I think Jeff has addressed rather nicely in his new post. When I posted this it wasn’t supposed to be a critique of GWWC (I didn’t realise how bad the situation there was at the time) as much as a critique of StrongMinds. Now I see quite how bad it is, I’m honestly at a loss for words.
ie SoGive would thinks depression is worse than death. Maybe this isn’t quite a “sanity check” but I doubt many people have that moral view.
I replied in the moral weights post w.r.t. “worse than death” thing. (I think that’s a fundamentally fair, but fundamentally different point from what I meant re: sanity checks w.r.t not crossing hard lower bounds w.r.t. the empirical effects of cash on well being vs the empirical effect of mental health interventions on well being)
Good stuff. I haven’t spent that much time looking at HLIs moral weights work but I think the answer is “Something is wrong with how you’ve constructed weights, HLI is in fact weighing mental health harder than SoGive”. I think a complete answer to this question requires me checking up on your calculations carefully, but I haven’t done so yet, so it’s possible that this is right.
If if were true that HLI found anything on the order of roughly doubling someone’s consumption improved well being as much as averting 1 case of depression, that would be very important as it would mean that SoGive moral weights fail some basic sanity checks. It would imply that we should raise our moral weight on cash-doubling to at least match the cost of therapy even under a purely subjective-well-being oriented framework to weighting. (why not pay 200 to double income, if it’s as good as averting depression and you would pay 200 to avert depression?) This seems implausible.
I haven’t actually been directly researching the comparative moral weights aspect, personally—I’ve been focusing primarily on <what’s the impact of therapy on depression in terms of effect size> rather than on the “what should the moral weights be” question (though I have put some attention to the “how to translate effect sizes into subjective intuitions” question, but that’s not quite the same thing). That said when I have more time I will look more deeply into this and check if our moral weights are failing some sort of sanity check on this order, but, I don’t think that they are.
Regarding the more general question of “where would we stand if we altered our moral weights to be something else”, ask me again in a month or so when all the spreadsheets are finalized, moral weights should be relatively easy to adjust once the analysis is done.
(as sanjay alludes to in the other thread, I do think all this is a somewhat separate discussion from the GWWC list—my main point with the GWWC list was that StrongMinds is not in the big picture actually super out of place with the others, in terms of how evidence-backed it is relative to the others, especially when you consider the big picture of the background academic literature about the intervention rather than their internal data. But I wanted to address the moral weights issue directly as it does seem like an important and separate point.)
I would recommend my post here. My opinion is—yes—SoGive’s moral weights do fail a basic sanity check.
1 year of averted depression is 4 income doublings
1 additional year of life (using GW life-expectancies for over 5s) is 1.95 income doublings.
ie SoGive would thinks depression is worse than death. Maybe this isn’t quite a “sanity check” but I doubt many people have that moral view.
I think cost-effectiveness is very important for this. StrongMinds isn’t so obviously great that we don’t need to consider the cost.
Yes, this is a great point which I think Jeff has addressed rather nicely in his new post. When I posted this it wasn’t supposed to be a critique of GWWC (I didn’t realise how bad the situation there was at the time) as much as a critique of StrongMinds. Now I see quite how bad it is, I’m honestly at a loss for words.
I replied in the moral weights post w.r.t. “worse than death” thing. (I think that’s a fundamentally fair, but fundamentally different point from what I meant re: sanity checks w.r.t not crossing hard lower bounds w.r.t. the empirical effects of cash on well being vs the empirical effect of mental health interventions on well being)