I definitely agree that we need reflection on the questions, but I frankly think that this post needed a bit more basic fact checking.
But when the community is donating on the scale of $100K or more, particularly in novel ways, and particularly when many donors are driven by prominent EAs’ enthusiasm, we should really have reason to believe that the intervention is effective. Before donating and encourage others to donate, we should share reason to believe that the intervention has a reasonable probability of success, rather than just the promise of great outcomes if it does succeed.
Sure, but I think the first bar—expectation of impact conditional on success—was correct, and don’t think you are disagreeing. And the second claim, that we need “reasonable probability of success,” is a different and contentious claim, given all the discussion of hits-based giving, and the idea of expected value.
I almost think it’s irresponsible for community leaders to say things like “I donated $5800 and recommend this highly to people looking for impactful individual donations” without (1) pointing to at least a back-of-the-envelope reason to believe that marginal donations have a reasonable probability of improving the outcome and (2) checking to make sure at least a couple people with relevant subject knowledge agree.
But 1) they did the BOTEC, if you read the post you linked to, and 2) yes, GAP and the various other people who focus on public policy and supporting the campaign personally were both working with plenty of people with subject matter expertise.
All of that said, we should certainly update based on the information gained from this loss, and I definitely think that more reflection is critical—but the reflexive take that “Carrick lost, so this was a bad decision” is unhelpful, and I’d welcome more specific thoughts on how and why “the community’s decision-making process wasn’t very grounded in donations’ probability of tipping the election”—which seems plausible, but unclear, and far from the only thing that matters.
Thanks for your comments. I think you’re mostly right, and I apologize for not being able to write more or more carefully at the moment.
they did the BOTEC, if you read the post you linked to
I did, a few times. The BOTEC is… extremely BOTE-y, and significantly too optimistic in my opinion, but absolutely better than no discussion of effectiveness.
the reflexive take that “Carrick lost, so this was a bad decision” is unhelpful
I totally agree.
I’d welcome more specific thoughts on how and why “the community’s decision-making process wasn’t very grounded in donations’ probability of tipping the election”
I guess I’m mostly reacting to sentiment on the forum in early February, which did not feel very concerned with how likely Carrick was to win (and iirc there was no analysis other than ASB’s shared on the forum), and independent of donations partly reacting to discourse similarly to Habryka.
I definitely agree that we need reflection on the questions, but I frankly think that this post needed a bit more basic fact checking.
Sure, but I think the first bar—expectation of impact conditional on success—was correct, and don’t think you are disagreeing. And the second claim, that we need “reasonable probability of success,” is a different and contentious claim, given all the discussion of hits-based giving, and the idea of expected value.
But 1) they did the BOTEC, if you read the post you linked to, and 2) yes, GAP and the various other people who focus on public policy and supporting the campaign personally were both working with plenty of people with subject matter expertise.
All of that said, we should certainly update based on the information gained from this loss, and I definitely think that more reflection is critical—but the reflexive take that “Carrick lost, so this was a bad decision” is unhelpful, and I’d welcome more specific thoughts on how and why “the community’s decision-making process wasn’t very grounded in donations’ probability of tipping the election”—which seems plausible, but unclear, and far from the only thing that matters.
Thanks for your comments. I think you’re mostly right, and I apologize for not being able to write more or more carefully at the moment.
I did, a few times. The BOTEC is… extremely BOTE-y, and significantly too optimistic in my opinion, but absolutely better than no discussion of effectiveness.
I totally agree.
I guess I’m mostly reacting to sentiment on the forum in early February, which did not feel very concerned with how likely Carrick was to win (and iirc there was no analysis other than ASB’s shared on the forum), and independent of donations partly reacting to discourse similarly to Habryka.