I appreciate a lot of what’s in this post! I do think it’s the case that we as a community have only explored a fraction of the space of development initiatives. It’s really plausible to me that there are more impactful approaches or things to fund out there.
That said, I feel this swings too hard against the traditional EA approach of careful analysis and prioritization. After working in development I’m kind of allergic to calls to do things like “establish ecosystems that empower altruistic leaders at scale, and that allow those that build and those that analyze to collaborate to each other’s mutual benefit”. Many of these programs do exist. Only a few of them are impactful.
I did a quick Google search and found that something kind of like what you propose does actually exist. The Global Shapers Community has a hub in Port-Au-Prince, which “brings together exceptional Haitian youths whose mission is to shape the community to which they belong”. I found it useful as an example of what something like this would actually look like in practice. Anyone can glance over their website and form their own view on how promising they think it would be to give this organization (or something like it) $1M.
I don’t think this project, or other projects like what you discuss in the post, are un-analyzable by EA evaluators. I do think it’s likely that many of them just sound better in theory than in practice.
I don’t think they’re un-analyzable either. I think EA should probably provide funding to help scale the most effective ones (if they want/need it), and fund new ones that they deem to be especially promising.
I appreciate a lot of what’s in this post! I do think it’s the case that we as a community have only explored a fraction of the space of development initiatives. It’s really plausible to me that there are more impactful approaches or things to fund out there.
That said, I feel this swings too hard against the traditional EA approach of careful analysis and prioritization. After working in development I’m kind of allergic to calls to do things like “establish ecosystems that empower altruistic leaders at scale, and that allow those that build and those that analyze to collaborate to each other’s mutual benefit”. Many of these programs do exist. Only a few of them are impactful.
I did a quick Google search and found that something kind of like what you propose does actually exist. The Global Shapers Community has a hub in Port-Au-Prince, which “brings together exceptional Haitian youths whose mission is to shape the community to which they belong”. I found it useful as an example of what something like this would actually look like in practice. Anyone can glance over their website and form their own view on how promising they think it would be to give this organization (or something like it) $1M.
I don’t think this project, or other projects like what you discuss in the post, are un-analyzable by EA evaluators. I do think it’s likely that many of them just sound better in theory than in practice.
I don’t think they’re un-analyzable either. I think EA should probably provide funding to help scale the most effective ones (if they want/need it), and fund new ones that they deem to be especially promising.