For skimmers, page 10 of Candidate Scoring System 5 has a diagram outlining the overall methodology of this analysis nicely. My overall impression of the document is that it’s not dissimilar in basic outlook from a mainstream political candidate evaluation or voter’s guide, leaning towards more quantitatively driven methods, and keeping an eye towards issues favored by Effective Altruists.
Things I like: This provides one of the few analyses of politicians on EA specific issues like X-risk, animal welfare, and global poverty. I think that’s potentially important, as (to my knowledge) there are not currently enough political evaluations of candidates based on that sort of thing. I support this and other volunteer projects attempting this sort of thing.
Things I’m ambivalent about: When it comes to areas which are non-neglected in non-EA political discourse, which you might find in a mainstream voter’s guide, I don’t currently feel more inclined to trust it over non-EA evaluations. That is to say, I don’t see any reason to consider it unusually trustworthy with respect to things like which candidates are best for specific cause areas such as climate change, education, abortion, etc let alone broad ideological evaluations of “capitalism vs. socialism” as general philosophies. This is not meant to be discouraging—creating voting guides is a crowded field, being the “most trustworthy” isn’t necessarily easy, though I do wonder if it might be better going forward to place a greater focus on evaluating the less crowded areas.
Some critique of the scope: I think an EA framework evaluating mainstream politics should include interventions (e.g. plans of organizing, activism), not just cause areas, and an analysis of “counterfactual” / “marginal” impact of those interventions, and a sense of the “tractability” when possible...not just the gross impact and importance of the policies themselves.
Whether or not some ideology, framework, -ism, policy recommendation, transfer of power, deep systemic change, etc can be rigorously shown to be superior to some alternative in terms of practical impact is politically interesting, and might change my vote or my ideological loyalty, but that doesn’t help in terms of altruistic activity if the problem is intractable. For me to consider it effective as a form of altruism, I’d want a description of the various methods (beyond just personally voting) to influence political outcomes, and the resources / price tag of shifting the probabilities of an election outcome …in addition to estimates of the impact of doing so. (Positive side effect—this would help keep focus on political issues in proportion to their estimated practical importance)
I don’t think that’s a crowded area, either—I’ve encountered some (but not a lot) of mainstream work on the cost effectiveness of political activity.
(Maybe that’s not the intention/scope of this project, though, and that’s okay—my main intent is to say that it would be really good if in general politically based interventions started focusing more on that part of the analysis)
Edit: Maybe this is the wrong thread, as I now realize there are other posts about the document as a whole, but I’ll leave this up unless someone thinks I should move it.
That is to say, I don’t see any reason to consider it unusually trustworthy with respect to things like which candidates are best for specific cause areas such as climate change, education, abortion, etc let alone broad ideological evaluations of “capitalism vs. socialism” as general philosophies.
The main issue is that the policy positions selected here are not (& should not be) always the same as what other pundits/think tanks want. A good example is immigration; even though we’re pro-immigration we care a lot more about expanding legal immigration and aren’t trying to prevent border enforcement (compared to other immigration advocates). But if other evaluations are valid and reliable, then we do defer to them. We just haven’t found many of them yet. Suggestions are always welcome.
This is not meant to be discouraging—creating voting guides is a crowded field, being the “most trustworthy” isn’t necessarily easy, though I do wonder if it might be better going forward to place a greater focus on evaluating the less crowded areas.
Well we have to put all the issues in the model. Otherwise the final rating isn’t very meaningful. It’s much less helpful to get a report that says “Cory Booker is the best candidate for animal welfare, but you might want to look up what other people have say about his tax proposals and idk if he’s best candidate overall.”
If we can fill the various issues up with reliable external sources then we do that, and it’s quick and easy. If we can’t, then we have to put more focus in examining and writing on our own. So in a sense we are putting more focus in topics that others have neglected to examine.
I think an EA framework evaluating mainstream politics should include interventions (e.g. plans of organizing, activism),
The furthest we’ve gone so far is to pick specific candidates to support or oppose in the run up to the primaries, and recommended some $1 donations to help them qualify for debates. More detailed guidance would be a good thing to include, I agree. Personally I don’t know what to write though (again, suggestions/contributions welcome).
If you’re referring to the judgments on political issues, that’s implicit in the “weight” sections. We look at how much good or bad could be done by government actions, given a certain amount of decision making power. But it’s not framed in a manner that makes a lot of sense for people who are specifically trying to influence a single political issue, it’s for selecting politicians.
If you’re referring to the judgments on candidates, I think no one has a good idea of how to evaluate the tractability of making them win. Whatever inclinations we do have (like, “don’t worry much about Delaney because he will presumably lose no matter what”) get put near the end where it currently says “To be added: final conclusions and recommendations for activism.” Then they factor into the conclusions selected for the Summary for Voters and Activists.
For skimmers, page 10 of Candidate Scoring System 5 has a diagram outlining the overall methodology of this analysis nicely. My overall impression of the document is that it’s not dissimilar in basic outlook from a mainstream political candidate evaluation or voter’s guide, leaning towards more quantitatively driven methods, and keeping an eye towards issues favored by Effective Altruists.
Things I like: This provides one of the few analyses of politicians on EA specific issues like X-risk, animal welfare, and global poverty. I think that’s potentially important, as (to my knowledge) there are not currently enough political evaluations of candidates based on that sort of thing. I support this and other volunteer projects attempting this sort of thing.
Things I’m ambivalent about: When it comes to areas which are non-neglected in non-EA political discourse, which you might find in a mainstream voter’s guide, I don’t currently feel more inclined to trust it over non-EA evaluations. That is to say, I don’t see any reason to consider it unusually trustworthy with respect to things like which candidates are best for specific cause areas such as climate change, education, abortion, etc let alone broad ideological evaluations of “capitalism vs. socialism” as general philosophies. This is not meant to be discouraging—creating voting guides is a crowded field, being the “most trustworthy” isn’t necessarily easy, though I do wonder if it might be better going forward to place a greater focus on evaluating the less crowded areas.
Some critique of the scope: I think an EA framework evaluating mainstream politics should include interventions (e.g. plans of organizing, activism), not just cause areas, and an analysis of “counterfactual” / “marginal” impact of those interventions, and a sense of the “tractability” when possible...not just the gross impact and importance of the policies themselves.
Whether or not some ideology, framework, -ism, policy recommendation, transfer of power, deep systemic change, etc can be rigorously shown to be superior to some alternative in terms of practical impact is politically interesting, and might change my vote or my ideological loyalty, but that doesn’t help in terms of altruistic activity if the problem is intractable. For me to consider it effective as a form of altruism, I’d want a description of the various methods (beyond just personally voting) to influence political outcomes, and the resources / price tag of shifting the probabilities of an election outcome …in addition to estimates of the impact of doing so. (Positive side effect—this would help keep focus on political issues in proportion to their estimated practical importance)
I don’t think that’s a crowded area, either—I’ve encountered some (but not a lot) of mainstream work on the cost effectiveness of political activity.
(Maybe that’s not the intention/scope of this project, though, and that’s okay—my main intent is to say that it would be really good if in general politically based interventions started focusing more on that part of the analysis)
Edit: Maybe this is the wrong thread, as I now realize there are other posts about the document as a whole, but I’ll leave this up unless someone thinks I should move it.
Thanks for the comments.
The main issue is that the policy positions selected here are not (& should not be) always the same as what other pundits/think tanks want. A good example is immigration; even though we’re pro-immigration we care a lot more about expanding legal immigration and aren’t trying to prevent border enforcement (compared to other immigration advocates). But if other evaluations are valid and reliable, then we do defer to them. We just haven’t found many of them yet. Suggestions are always welcome.
Well we have to put all the issues in the model. Otherwise the final rating isn’t very meaningful. It’s much less helpful to get a report that says “Cory Booker is the best candidate for animal welfare, but you might want to look up what other people have say about his tax proposals and idk if he’s best candidate overall.”
If we can fill the various issues up with reliable external sources then we do that, and it’s quick and easy. If we can’t, then we have to put more focus in examining and writing on our own. So in a sense we are putting more focus in topics that others have neglected to examine.
The furthest we’ve gone so far is to pick specific candidates to support or oppose in the run up to the primaries, and recommended some $1 donations to help them qualify for debates. More detailed guidance would be a good thing to include, I agree. Personally I don’t know what to write though (again, suggestions/contributions welcome).
If you’re referring to the judgments on political issues, that’s implicit in the “weight” sections. We look at how much good or bad could be done by government actions, given a certain amount of decision making power. But it’s not framed in a manner that makes a lot of sense for people who are specifically trying to influence a single political issue, it’s for selecting politicians.
If you’re referring to the judgments on candidates, I think no one has a good idea of how to evaluate the tractability of making them win. Whatever inclinations we do have (like, “don’t worry much about Delaney because he will presumably lose no matter what”) get put near the end where it currently says “To be added: final conclusions and recommendations for activism.” Then they factor into the conclusions selected for the Summary for Voters and Activists.