If prioritarianism demands focusing on helping fewer people living on <$1 a day rather than many people living on $1.25 per day, then virtually all rich country welfare state spending and domestic charity fails. Does Gabriel accept that?
The standard arguments against substantial prioritarianism (basically a lot more suffering and death) seem pretty good, and EA in fact helps people far worse-off than those prioritarians/egalitarians often focus on (relatively locally poor in rich countries who are rich by global standards).
The large donors aren’t fully on board with the effectiveness thing
In support of the third claim, Gabriel points out that GiveWell is able to fully fund its top charities via Good Ventures, but has chosen not to do so. If true, it’s fairly obviously problematic for us.
Large donors may not feel that GiveWell and GWWC are doing their prioritization research correctly
The EA movement is cute and needs to be supported in its growth by giving it some nice charities to play with (not Gabriel’s exact words)
This seems pretty explicitly something that Good Ventures is doing. They are providing some funding to GW’s picks for demonstration and movement-building purposes, but leaving lots of room for funding to bolster EA movement growth, while working on more effective giving options with OPP.
And I agree that the expected value for things like OPP picks on foreign aid meta-research, or humanitarian immigration advocacy, will likely be substantially better than AMF.
However, that means that funging with Good Ventures is pretty good, since it will leave them with more dollars for OPP. If you are substituting for big foundation X then your marginal impact is the marginal impact of a dollar in the hands of foundation X. Still, this is why I often favor donations to small startup projects (e.g. Charity Science) and such where transaction costs or other barriers prevent the involvement of large funders.
Gabriel refers to David Brooks as saying that an earning-to-give career might not be psychologically sustainable for most people—even if it is for a few EAs.
There’s a good amount of evidence for this, if it means choosing a career one otherwise dislikes for higher earnings.
the claim that EA undervalues collective goods such as community empowerment and hope.
A big portion of the case for GW’s charities is precisely community spillover effects in community-scale RCTs!
If prioritarianism demands focusing on helping fewer people living on <$1 a day rather than many people living on $1.25 per day, then virtually all rich country welfare state spending and domestic charity fails. Does Gabriel accept that?
The standard arguments against substantial prioritarianism (basically a lot more suffering and death) seem pretty good, and EA in fact helps people far worse-off than those prioritarians/egalitarians often focus on (relatively locally poor in rich countries who are rich by global standards).
This seems pretty explicitly something that Good Ventures is doing. They are providing some funding to GW’s picks for demonstration and movement-building purposes, but leaving lots of room for funding to bolster EA movement growth, while working on more effective giving options with OPP.
And I agree that the expected value for things like OPP picks on foreign aid meta-research, or humanitarian immigration advocacy, will likely be substantially better than AMF.
However, that means that funging with Good Ventures is pretty good, since it will leave them with more dollars for OPP. If you are substituting for big foundation X then your marginal impact is the marginal impact of a dollar in the hands of foundation X. Still, this is why I often favor donations to small startup projects (e.g. Charity Science) and such where transaction costs or other barriers prevent the involvement of large funders.
There’s a good amount of evidence for this, if it means choosing a career one otherwise dislikes for higher earnings.
A big portion of the case for GW’s charities is precisely community spillover effects in community-scale RCTs!