Personally, I am more concerned about GiveWell neglecting effects on animals, i.e. the meat-eater problem. These may well imply GiveWell’s top charities are harmful, even in the nearterm:
From here, the negative utility of farmed chickens is 2.64 times the positive utility of humans.
From here, the effects of GiveWell’s top charities on wild arthropods are 1.50 k times their effects on humans (based on deforestation rates, and Rethink Priorities’ median moral weight for silkworm). I do not know whether arthropods have good or bad lives
However, the conclusion for me is that the overall effect accounting for humans and animals is pretty unclear, since it is really hard to know whether wild arthropods have good or bad lives. One may argue we should ignore the impacts on wild animals due to their uncertainty, but I do not think that is fair, because it is a case of complex cluelessness (not one of simple clulessness where very uncertain effects can be ignored based on evidential symmetry). I agree that, mathematically, E(“overall effect”) > 0 if:
“Overall effect” = “nearterm effect on humans” + “nearterm effect on animals” + “longterm effect”.
E(“nearterm effect on humans”) > 0.
E(“nearterm effect on animals” + “longterm effect”) = k E(“nearterm effect on humans”).
k = 0.
However, under complex cluelessness, setting k to 0 is unfair. One could just as well set it to −1, in which case E(“overall effect”) = 0. Since I am not confident |k| << 1, I am not confident either about the sign of E(“overall effect”).
I would also say the impact on farmed animals has relatively low uncertainty. Rethink Priorities’ median moral weight for chickens is 0.332 (see here), and the Welfare Footprint Project has done great research on measuring the pain farmed chickens experience.
A comment here is not a good place for this: it’s barely related to the content of the post. A new top level post, your shortform, or a comment on relevant post would be a much better fit.
(It’s also very similar to a comment you wrote a week ago in another unrelated thread.)
Just thought I’d say I’m actually interested by Vasco’s comment. I don’t see why it’s not related—the post is meant to be assessing overall cost-effectiveness (according to the title), so effects on animals are potentially relevant (edit: OK the title refers to HLI’s analysis and the comment is about GiveWell’s, but it applies to both, so I’d accept it). If the point were only written about elsewhere, then it could easily be missed by readers interested in this topic. That said, a fuller write up of how the meat eater problem may affect views on which charities are most cost-effective would also be helpful I think.
It’s a completely different conversation in my book. The post, per the title, is an assessment of HLI’s model of SM’s effectiveness. I dont really see Vasco’s comment as about GW’s assessment of HLI’s model, HLI’s model itself, or SM’s effectiveness with any particularity. It’s more about the broad idea that GH&D effects for almost any GH&D program may be swamped by animal-welfare and longtermist effects.
I do actually think there is a related point to be made that is appropriate to the post: (1) it is good that we have a new published analysis that SM is very likely an effective charity; because (2) even under GW’s version of the analysis, some donors may feel SM is an attractive choice in the global health & development space because they are concerned about the meat-eater problem [link to Vasco’s analysis here] and/or environmental concerns that potentially affect life-saving and economic-development modes of action.
The reasons I’d find that kind of comment helpful—but didn’t find the comment by @Vasco as written well-suited for this post include:
(1) the perspective above is an attempt at a practical application of GW’s findings that is much more hooked into the main subject of the post (which is about SM and HLI’s CEA thereof), and
(2) By noting the meat-eater problem but linking to a discussion in one’s own post, rather than attempting to explain/discuss it in a post trying to nail down the GH&D effects of SM, the risk of derailing the discussion on someone else’s post is significantly reduced.
Ya, the analyses explicitly include spillover effects on some individuals who aren’t directly affected by the interventions (i.e. household family members), but ignore potentially important predictable nearterm indirect effects (those on nonhuman animals) and all of the far future effects. And it doesn’t explain why.
However, ignoring effects on nonhuman animals and the far future is typical for analyses of global health and poverty interventions. And this is discussed in other places where cause prioritization is the main topic. I’d guess, based on comments elsewhere on the EA Forum and other EA-related spaces, nonhuman animal effects are ignored because the authors don’t agree with giving nonhuman animals so much moral weight relative to humans, or are doing worldview diversification and they aren’t confident in such high moral weights. I don’t think we’d want a comment like Vasco’s on many global health and poverty intervention posts, because we don’t want to have the same discussion scattered and repeated this way, especially when there are better places to have it. Instead, Vasco’s own posts, posts about moral weight and posts about cause prioritization would be better places.
When people bring up effects on wild fish, I often point out that they’re thinking about it the wrong way (getting the supply responses wrong) and ignoring population effects. But I’m pretty sure this is something they would care about if informed, and there aren’t that many posts about wild fish. I also suspect we should be more worried about animal product reduction backfiring in the near term because of wild animal effects, but I think this is more controversial and animal product reduction is covered much more on the EA Forum than fishing in particular, so passing comments on posts about diet change and substitutes doesn’t seem like a good way to have this discussion.
I guess there’s a question of whether a comment like Vasco’s would be welcome every now and then on global health and poverty posts, but it could be a slippery slope.
I agree with your assessment that Vasco’s comment is not really on topic.
I also feel like there is a lack of substantive discussion and just overall engagement on the forum (this post and comment section being an exception).
I’m not exactly sure why this is (maybe there just aren’t enough EA’s) but it seems related to users being worried that their comments might not add value combined with the lack of anonymity and in-group dynamics. In general I find hacker news and subreddits like r/neoliberal to be significantly more thought provoking and engaging even though I think the commenters of those subs are often engaging more hedonistically and less to add value. On the margin the EA forum should be more serious and have stricter norms than those communities, but I’m worried that forum users optimizing individual posts and comments for usefulness is lowering the overall usefulness of the forum.
Just to make a point on this comment related to how the forum works, it looks like people don’t like it on net, but there may be a substantial minority interested in animal welfare considerations who find it helpful (I count myself here), and therefore it would be valuable for these people. But currently it’s automatically hidden as if it’s spam-like and not worth reading for anyone. This seems suboptimal, and perhaps a more strict bar for hiding comments should be set. Comments with low scores are sent to the bottom of the page anyway, so it’s unlikely to be that bothersome.
It may also be valuable for people to be able to see the numbers of upvotes and downvotes separately, so they can see if there’s a minority of readers who appreciate their comments vs getting pure downvotes, which give different messages in terms of feedback.
Given the current forum workings, it seems like people should be cautious about downvoting comments where a substantial minority of others may disagree and think it’s a useful point and wouldn’t want it hidden (and use disagree voting to indicate difference of judgement).
Thanks for the update!
Personally, I am more concerned about GiveWell neglecting effects on animals, i.e. the meat-eater problem. These may well imply GiveWell’s top charities are harmful, even in the nearterm:
From here, the negative utility of farmed chickens is 2.64 times the positive utility of humans.
From here, the effects of GiveWell’s top charities on wild arthropods are 1.50 k times their effects on humans (based on deforestation rates, and Rethink Priorities’ median moral weight for silkworm). I do not know whether arthropods have good or bad lives
However, the conclusion for me is that the overall effect accounting for humans and animals is pretty unclear, since it is really hard to know whether wild arthropods have good or bad lives. One may argue we should ignore the impacts on wild animals due to their uncertainty, but I do not think that is fair, because it is a case of complex cluelessness (not one of simple clulessness where very uncertain effects can be ignored based on evidential symmetry). I agree that, mathematically, E(“overall effect”) > 0 if:
“Overall effect” = “nearterm effect on humans” + “nearterm effect on animals” + “longterm effect”.
E(“nearterm effect on humans”) > 0.
E(“nearterm effect on animals” + “longterm effect”) = k E(“nearterm effect on humans”).
k = 0.
However, under complex cluelessness, setting k to 0 is unfair. One could just as well set it to −1, in which case E(“overall effect”) = 0. Since I am not confident |k| << 1, I am not confident either about the sign of E(“overall effect”).
I would also say the impact on farmed animals has relatively low uncertainty. Rethink Priorities’ median moral weight for chickens is 0.332 (see here), and the Welfare Footprint Project has done great research on measuring the pain farmed chickens experience.
A comment here is not a good place for this: it’s barely related to the content of the post. A new top level post, your shortform, or a comment on relevant post would be a much better fit.
(It’s also very similar to a comment you wrote a week ago in another unrelated thread.)
Just thought I’d say I’m actually interested by Vasco’s comment. I don’t see why it’s not related—the post is meant to be assessing overall cost-effectiveness (according to the title), so effects on animals are potentially relevant (edit: OK the title refers to HLI’s analysis and the comment is about GiveWell’s, but it applies to both, so I’d accept it). If the point were only written about elsewhere, then it could easily be missed by readers interested in this topic. That said, a fuller write up of how the meat eater problem may affect views on which charities are most cost-effective would also be helpful I think.
It’s a completely different conversation in my book. The post, per the title, is an assessment of HLI’s model of SM’s effectiveness. I dont really see Vasco’s comment as about GW’s assessment of HLI’s model, HLI’s model itself, or SM’s effectiveness with any particularity. It’s more about the broad idea that GH&D effects for almost any GH&D program may be swamped by animal-welfare and longtermist effects.
I do actually think there is a related point to be made that is appropriate to the post: (1) it is good that we have a new published analysis that SM is very likely an effective charity; because (2) even under GW’s version of the analysis, some donors may feel SM is an attractive choice in the global health & development space because they are concerned about the meat-eater problem [link to Vasco’s analysis here] and/or environmental concerns that potentially affect life-saving and economic-development modes of action.
The reasons I’d find that kind of comment helpful—but didn’t find the comment by @Vasco as written well-suited for this post include:
(1) the perspective above is an attempt at a practical application of GW’s findings that is much more hooked into the main subject of the post (which is about SM and HLI’s CEA thereof), and
(2) By noting the meat-eater problem but linking to a discussion in one’s own post, rather than attempting to explain/discuss it in a post trying to nail down the GH&D effects of SM, the risk of derailing the discussion on someone else’s post is significantly reduced.
Ya, the analyses explicitly include spillover effects on some individuals who aren’t directly affected by the interventions (i.e. household family members), but ignore potentially important predictable nearterm indirect effects (those on nonhuman animals) and all of the far future effects. And it doesn’t explain why.
However, ignoring effects on nonhuman animals and the far future is typical for analyses of global health and poverty interventions. And this is discussed in other places where cause prioritization is the main topic. I’d guess, based on comments elsewhere on the EA Forum and other EA-related spaces, nonhuman animal effects are ignored because the authors don’t agree with giving nonhuman animals so much moral weight relative to humans, or are doing worldview diversification and they aren’t confident in such high moral weights. I don’t think we’d want a comment like Vasco’s on many global health and poverty intervention posts, because we don’t want to have the same discussion scattered and repeated this way, especially when there are better places to have it. Instead, Vasco’s own posts, posts about moral weight and posts about cause prioritization would be better places.
When people bring up effects on wild fish, I often point out that they’re thinking about it the wrong way (getting the supply responses wrong) and ignoring population effects. But I’m pretty sure this is something they would care about if informed, and there aren’t that many posts about wild fish. I also suspect we should be more worried about animal product reduction backfiring in the near term because of wild animal effects, but I think this is more controversial and animal product reduction is covered much more on the EA Forum than fishing in particular, so passing comments on posts about diet change and substitutes doesn’t seem like a good way to have this discussion.
I guess there’s a question of whether a comment like Vasco’s would be welcome every now and then on global health and poverty posts, but it could be a slippery slope.
I agree with your assessment that Vasco’s comment is not really on topic.
I also feel like there is a lack of substantive discussion and just overall engagement on the forum (this post and comment section being an exception).
I’m not exactly sure why this is (maybe there just aren’t enough EA’s) but it seems related to users being worried that their comments might not add value combined with the lack of anonymity and in-group dynamics. In general I find hacker news and subreddits like r/neoliberal to be significantly more thought provoking and engaging even though I think the commenters of those subs are often engaging more hedonistically and less to add value. On the margin the EA forum should be more serious and have stricter norms than those communities, but I’m worried that forum users optimizing individual posts and comments for usefulness is lowering the overall usefulness of the forum.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for taking the time to comment that!
Just to make a point on this comment related to how the forum works, it looks like people don’t like it on net, but there may be a substantial minority interested in animal welfare considerations who find it helpful (I count myself here), and therefore it would be valuable for these people. But currently it’s automatically hidden as if it’s spam-like and not worth reading for anyone. This seems suboptimal, and perhaps a more strict bar for hiding comments should be set. Comments with low scores are sent to the bottom of the page anyway, so it’s unlikely to be that bothersome.
It may also be valuable for people to be able to see the numbers of upvotes and downvotes separately, so they can see if there’s a minority of readers who appreciate their comments vs getting pure downvotes, which give different messages in terms of feedback.
Given the current forum workings, it seems like people should be cautious about downvoting comments where a substantial minority of others may disagree and think it’s a useful point and wouldn’t want it hidden (and use disagree voting to indicate difference of judgement).