I haven’t browsed the grants in much detail myself, but I would default to trying to explain EA’s culture of thoroughness by reference to e.g. GiveWell’s detailed evaluations of various charities, and say “this is more depth than most grants go into but it sets the tone of the sorts of things people tend to look for”.
You could also point out common biases that the person might be falling for. One thing I would be inclined to explain in particular is the bikeshedding bias (https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/bikeshedding) -- it’s much easier to critique things we understand. The simplest-looking grants (like university group support) are ones which I can imagine are particularly subject to bikeshedding.
Another thing I would be inclined to explain is the idea of continuing to invest (possibly exponentially) in things that work. e.g., if some intervention has shown that they made good use of $10k in the past, maybe try giving them $100k and see if they can do 10x as much good, or close to it. A related bias is the absurdity heuristic (e.g. ruling good ideas out because “they seem kind of crazy”).
I haven’t browsed the grants in much detail myself, but I would default to trying to explain EA’s culture of thoroughness by reference to e.g. GiveWell’s detailed evaluations of various charities, and say “this is more depth than most grants go into but it sets the tone of the sorts of things people tend to look for”.
You could also point out common biases that the person might be falling for. One thing I would be inclined to explain in particular is the bikeshedding bias (https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/bikeshedding) -- it’s much easier to critique things we understand. The simplest-looking grants (like university group support) are ones which I can imagine are particularly subject to bikeshedding.
Another thing I would be inclined to explain is the idea of continuing to invest (possibly exponentially) in things that work. e.g., if some intervention has shown that they made good use of $10k in the past, maybe try giving them $100k and see if they can do 10x as much good, or close to it. A related bias is the absurdity heuristic (e.g. ruling good ideas out because “they seem kind of crazy”).