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Much of what I wanted to say in response to this post was said by Alexander Gordon-Brown in this comment section, so I’ll skip it. A couple of other notes:
(1) Good Ventures (through its funding of GiveWell charities) doesn’t just aim to avert deaths; it also tries to reduce poverty and fight non-lethal but debilitating instances of disease. Even people who are pro-deworming don’t claim that it saves many lives; instead, they argue that it helps many people live better lives than they would have otherwise.
Do you believe that Good Ventures overvalues “improving lives” compared to “saving lives”? I could also read your argument as “Good Ventures should be doing more of what they do already, spending money faster in the process to both save and improve lives”. Do either of those interpretations match your beliefs?
(2) Phrases like “marketing copy designed to control your behavior” seem wildly uncharitable, in a way that actually distorts reality.
GiveWell’s declining to fully fund recommended charities has been criticized before, and well. But while it seems plausible to me that they’ve chosen the wrong number by funding 50% of “non-must-fund” opportunities, I don’t think they’re deliberately lying about their beliefs or that they have some kind of sinister desire to “control” donors. Everything I’ve read by them in the last few years has been open advice to donors with particular values, with open acknowledgment that effectiveness numbers are estimates that don’t fully reflect reality (and public spreadsheets demonstrating disagreements between GiveWell staff on the best numbers to use). I don’t understand why they would deliberately lie—do you believe that they are unfairly biased in favor of certain charities? That they think all the charities they recommend are worse than they say, but still better than other options?
(Yes, some of this may be addressed in the blog series, but given the harshness of the criticism here, it seems fair to at least re-summarize some of your relevant earlier points.)
It looks like you meant to publish this post using the Markdown editor, but that you were in the WYSIWYG editor when you wrote it. You can switch editors in the “Edit Account” settings.
--
Much of what I wanted to say in response to this post was said by Alexander Gordon-Brown in this comment section, so I’ll skip it. A couple of other notes:
(1) Good Ventures (through its funding of GiveWell charities) doesn’t just aim to avert deaths; it also tries to reduce poverty and fight non-lethal but debilitating instances of disease. Even people who are pro-deworming don’t claim that it saves many lives; instead, they argue that it helps many people live better lives than they would have otherwise.
Do you believe that Good Ventures overvalues “improving lives” compared to “saving lives”? I could also read your argument as “Good Ventures should be doing more of what they do already, spending money faster in the process to both save and improve lives”. Do either of those interpretations match your beliefs?
(2) Phrases like “marketing copy designed to control your behavior” seem wildly uncharitable, in a way that actually distorts reality.
GiveWell’s declining to fully fund recommended charities has been criticized before, and well. But while it seems plausible to me that they’ve chosen the wrong number by funding 50% of “non-must-fund” opportunities, I don’t think they’re deliberately lying about their beliefs or that they have some kind of sinister desire to “control” donors. Everything I’ve read by them in the last few years has been open advice to donors with particular values, with open acknowledgment that effectiveness numbers are estimates that don’t fully reflect reality (and public spreadsheets demonstrating disagreements between GiveWell staff on the best numbers to use). I don’t understand why they would deliberately lie—do you believe that they are unfairly biased in favor of certain charities? That they think all the charities they recommend are worse than they say, but still better than other options?
(Yes, some of this may be addressed in the blog series, but given the harshness of the criticism here, it seems fair to at least re-summarize some of your relevant earlier points.)