I do think RTSLâs salt policy work (and other salt policy projects, particularly ImagineLaw in the Philippines) are reasonably good bets for maximizing life years saved. That said, I donât an individual donation to RTSL would help insofar as smaller donors canât purpose restrict it (see their donation button at https://ââresolvetosavelives.org/ââ).
In practice, I would suggest donating to CEARCHâs GHD policy regranting budget (via https://ââexploratory-altruism.org/ââwork-with-us/ââ, or just email me and Iâll put you in touch with our fiscal sponsor), making a note on purpose-restriction if you wish, and then your donation goes out as part of a broader consolidated package (e.g. that 63k grant we made on SSB tax enforcement was me personally and 5 other EA donors pulling together).
On nuclear/âvolcanic winterâwonât the direct effect just be straightforwardly mass extinction of wild animals, which eliminates their suffering? And in contrast, a lot of currently valuable farmland may just not be usable when temperatures shift, so there may not be an offset. A lot of uncertainty regardless, and reasonable people can disagree.
âHigh Impact Philanthropy Fund @ PPFâ links to CEARCHâs contact page, so I suppose people always have to email you in order to make a donation, thus discouraging small donations. I wonder whether there is an easy low cost way of enabling these.
Hi Vasco, thanks for flagging out. Iâve updated our Work With Us page to include the direct donation link (additional 1-3% in fees, but more convenient; if donors prefer minimizing fees, they should feel free to reach out and we can guide them through the cheaper wire transfer)
Thanks for clarifying, Joel! I plan to recommend people donate to CEARCHâs High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) in a post I am writing which I will share in this thread once it is published. Is HIPF trying to avert as many DALYs as possible in a risk neutral way? If so, I do not have to recommend restricted donations. Do you have a guess for HIPFâs marginal cost-effectiveness as a fraction of that of GiveWellâs top charities? I would guess 55 as implied by CEARCHâs CEA of advocating for taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).
Impact, nuclear, and volcanic winters would decrease the number of wild animals a lot, but replacing forested area with cropland to produce more food would decrease them further.
Our grantmaking always aims at maximizing DALYS averted (with income and other stuff translated to DALYs too).
In terms of cost-effectiveness, itâs nominally 30-50x GW, but GiveWell is more rigorous in discounting, so our figures should be inflated relative to GW. Based on some internal analysis we did of GWâs greater strictness in individual line-item estimation and in the greater number of adjustments they employ, we think a more conservative estimate is that our estimates may be up to 3x inflated (i.e. something we think is 10x GW may be closer to 3x GW, which is why we use a 10x GW threshold for recommending GHD causes in the first placeâto ensure that what we recommend is genuinely >GW, and moving money to the new cause area is +EV).
So my more conservative guess for our grantmaking is that itâs closer to 9-15x GW, but again I have to emphasize the high uncertainty (and riskiness, which is the inherent price we pay for these ultra high EV policy interventions).
Thanks, Joel! Do you also think your estimate that donating to Giving What We Can (GWWC) this year is 13 times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities is also 3 times as high as it should be, such that your best guess is that it is 4.33 (= 13â3) times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities (although there is large uncertainty)? Or is the adjustment only supposed to be applicable to CEARCHâs CEAs listed here?
Hey Vasco, the adjustment is specific to GiveWell vs us (or indeed, non-GW CEAs), since GiveWell probably is the most rigorous in discounting, while other organizations are less so, for various reasons (mainly timeâthatâs true for us, and why we just use a rough 10x GW threshold; and itâs true of FP too; Matt Lerner goes into detail here on the tradeoff between drilling down vs spending researcher time finding and supporting more high EV opportunities instead).
Relative to every other organization, I donât find CEARCH to be systematically overoptimistic in the same way (at least for our deep/âfinal round CEAs).
For our GWWC evaluation, I think the ballpark figure (robustly positive multiplier) probably still holds, but Iâm uncertain about the precise figure right now, after seeing some of GWWCâs latest data (theyâll release their 2023-24 impact evaluation soon).
I plan to recommend people donate to CEARCHâs High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) in a post I am writing which I will share in this thread once it is published.
I have now published the post where I recommend HIPF. It looks into the cost-effectiveness of interventions accounting for soil nematodes, mites, and springtails.
I do think RTSLâs salt policy work (and other salt policy projects, particularly ImagineLaw in the Philippines) are reasonably good bets for maximizing life years saved. That said, I donât an individual donation to RTSL would help insofar as smaller donors canât purpose restrict it (see their donation button at https://ââresolvetosavelives.org/ââ).
In practice, I would suggest donating to CEARCHâs GHD policy regranting budget (via https://ââexploratory-altruism.org/ââwork-with-us/ââ, or just email me and Iâll put you in touch with our fiscal sponsor), making a note on purpose-restriction if you wish, and then your donation goes out as part of a broader consolidated package (e.g. that 63k grant we made on SSB tax enforcement was me personally and 5 other EA donors pulling together).
On nuclear/âvolcanic winterâwonât the direct effect just be straightforwardly mass extinction of wild animals, which eliminates their suffering? And in contrast, a lot of currently valuable farmland may just not be usable when temperatures shift, so there may not be an offset. A lot of uncertainty regardless, and reasonable people can disagree.
âHigh Impact Philanthropy Fund @ PPFâ links to CEARCHâs contact page, so I suppose people always have to email you in order to make a donation, thus discouraging small donations. I wonder whether there is an easy low cost way of enabling these.
Hi Vasco, thanks for flagging out. Iâve updated our Work With Us page to include the direct donation link (additional 1-3% in fees, but more convenient; if donors prefer minimizing fees, they should feel free to reach out and we can guide them through the cheaper wire transfer)
Thanks, Joel!
Thanks for clarifying, Joel! I plan to recommend people donate to CEARCHâs High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) in a post I am writing which I will share in this thread once it is published. Is HIPF trying to avert as many DALYs as possible in a risk neutral way? If so, I do not have to recommend restricted donations. Do you have a guess for HIPFâs marginal cost-effectiveness as a fraction of that of GiveWellâs top charities? I would guess 55 as implied by CEARCHâs CEA of advocating for taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).
Impact, nuclear, and volcanic winters would decrease the number of wild animals a lot, but replacing forested area with cropland to produce more food would decrease them further.
Our grantmaking always aims at maximizing DALYS averted (with income and other stuff translated to DALYs too).
In terms of cost-effectiveness, itâs nominally 30-50x GW, but GiveWell is more rigorous in discounting, so our figures should be inflated relative to GW. Based on some internal analysis we did of GWâs greater strictness in individual line-item estimation and in the greater number of adjustments they employ, we think a more conservative estimate is that our estimates may be up to 3x inflated (i.e. something we think is 10x GW may be closer to 3x GW, which is why we use a 10x GW threshold for recommending GHD causes in the first placeâto ensure that what we recommend is genuinely >GW, and moving money to the new cause area is +EV).
So my more conservative guess for our grantmaking is that itâs closer to 9-15x GW, but again I have to emphasize the high uncertainty (and riskiness, which is the inherent price we pay for these ultra high EV policy interventions).
Thanks, Joel! Do you also think your estimate that donating to Giving What We Can (GWWC) this year is 13 times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities is also 3 times as high as it should be, such that your best guess is that it is 4.33 (= 13â3) times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities (although there is large uncertainty)? Or is the adjustment only supposed to be applicable to CEARCHâs CEAs listed here?
Hey Vasco, the adjustment is specific to GiveWell vs us (or indeed, non-GW CEAs), since GiveWell probably is the most rigorous in discounting, while other organizations are less so, for various reasons (mainly timeâthatâs true for us, and why we just use a rough 10x GW threshold; and itâs true of FP too; Matt Lerner goes into detail here on the tradeoff between drilling down vs spending researcher time finding and supporting more high EV opportunities instead).
Relative to every other organization, I donât find CEARCH to be systematically overoptimistic in the same way (at least for our deep/âfinal round CEAs).
For our GWWC evaluation, I think the ballpark figure (robustly positive multiplier) probably still holds, but Iâm uncertain about the precise figure right now, after seeing some of GWWCâs latest data (theyâll release their 2023-24 impact evaluation soon).
I have now published the post where I recommend HIPF. It looks into the cost-effectiveness of interventions accounting for soil nematodes, mites, and springtails.