The “inside view” point is that Christiano’s estimate only takes into account the “price of a life saved”. But in truth GiveWell’s recommendations for bednets or deworming are to a large measure driven by their belief, backed by some empirical evidence, that children who grow up free of worms or malaria become adults who can lead more productive lives. This may lead to better returns than what his calculations suggest. (Micronutrient supplementation may also be quite efficient in this respect.)
I think this is a fair point. Specifically, I agree that GiveWell’s recommendations are only partly (in the case of bednets) or not at all (in the case of deworming) based on literally averting deaths. I haven’t looked at Paul Christiano’s post in sufficient detail to say for sure, but I agree it’s plausible that this way of using “price of a life saved” calculations might effectively ignore other benefits, thus underestimating the benefits of bednet-like interventions compared to GiveWell’s analysis.
I would need to think about this more to form a considered view, but my guess is this wouldn’t change my mind on my tentative belief that global health interventions selected for their short-term (say, anything within the next 20 years) benefits aren’t optimal growth interventions. This is largely because I think the dialectical situation looks roughly like this:
The “beware suspicious convergence” argument implies that it’s unlikely (though not impossible) that health interventions selected for maximizing certain short-term benefits are also optimal for accelerating long-run growth. The burden of proof is thus with the view that they are optimal growth interventions.
In addition, some back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest the same conclusion as the first bullet point.
You’ve pointed out a potential problem with the second bullet point. I think it’s plausible to likely that this significantly to totally removes the force of the second bullet point. But even if the conclusion of the calculations were completely turned on their head, I don’t think they would by themselves succeed in defeating the first bullet point.
I think this is a fair point. Specifically, I agree that GiveWell’s recommendations are only partly (in the case of bednets) or not at all (in the case of deworming) based on literally averting deaths. I haven’t looked at Paul Christiano’s post in sufficient detail to say for sure, but I agree it’s plausible that this way of using “price of a life saved” calculations might effectively ignore other benefits, thus underestimating the benefits of bednet-like interventions compared to GiveWell’s analysis.
I would need to think about this more to form a considered view, but my guess is this wouldn’t change my mind on my tentative belief that global health interventions selected for their short-term (say, anything within the next 20 years) benefits aren’t optimal growth interventions. This is largely because I think the dialectical situation looks roughly like this:
The “beware suspicious convergence” argument implies that it’s unlikely (though not impossible) that health interventions selected for maximizing certain short-term benefits are also optimal for accelerating long-run growth. The burden of proof is thus with the view that they are optimal growth interventions.
In addition, some back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest the same conclusion as the first bullet point.
You’ve pointed out a potential problem with the second bullet point. I think it’s plausible to likely that this significantly to totally removes the force of the second bullet point. But even if the conclusion of the calculations were completely turned on their head, I don’t think they would by themselves succeed in defeating the first bullet point.