While this is true, I think this comment somewhat misunderstands the point of the post, or at least doesn’t engage with the most promising interpretation of it.
I work at Founders Pledge, and I do think it is true that the correct function of an org like FP is (speaking roughly) to move money that is not effectiveness-focused from “bad stuff” to “good stuff.” Over the years, FP has had many conversations about the extent to which we want to encourage “better” giving as opposed to “best” giving. I think we’ve basically cohered on the view that focusing on “better” giving (within e.g. American education or arts giving or whatever) is a kind of value drift for FP that would reduce our impact over the medium- and long-term. We try to move money to the best stuff, not to better stuff.
But I still think this is a promising frame that deserves some dedicated attention.
Imagine two interventions, neither of which is cost-effective by “EA lights.” Intervention A can save a life for $100,000. Intervention B can save a life for $1 million. Enormous amounts of money are spent on Intervention B, which is popular among normie donors for reasons that are unrelated to effectiveness. If you can shift $1 billion from Intervention B to Intervention A, you save 9,000 lives. Thus working to shift this money is cost-effective — competitive with GiveWell top charities in expectation — if it costs less than $45 million to do so (~$5,000 per life).
More generally, shifting money by ~0.1 GDx is cost-effective even if you’re shifting money far below the cost-effectiveness bar as long as you have 100x leverage over the money you are shifting.
I don’t think opportunities like this are super easy to find, but it seems plausible to me that the following avenues will contain promising options:
Simply working in a position with very high leverage over funds moved (e.g. in government or at a major normie philanthropy)
Promoting effective interventions in areas where (a) lots of money is spent and (b) the dominant intervention is not effective
Value of information interventions that have a clear effect on decision-making
I agree that there is impact to be found here, but the framing in the main post seemed to not consider the effective giving ecosystem as it currently is.
I’m still saying that this area is neglected. I’m trying to give more context, rather than telling people to not work on it. In my own advising I’ve recommended a lot of people to consider these wider areas.
While this is true, I think this comment somewhat misunderstands the point of the post, or at least doesn’t engage with the most promising interpretation of it.
I work at Founders Pledge, and I do think it is true that the correct function of an org like FP is (speaking roughly) to move money that is not effectiveness-focused from “bad stuff” to “good stuff.” Over the years, FP has had many conversations about the extent to which we want to encourage “better” giving as opposed to “best” giving. I think we’ve basically cohered on the view that focusing on “better” giving (within e.g. American education or arts giving or whatever) is a kind of value drift for FP that would reduce our impact over the medium- and long-term. We try to move money to the best stuff, not to better stuff.
But I still think this is a promising frame that deserves some dedicated attention.
Imagine two interventions, neither of which is cost-effective by “EA lights.” Intervention A can save a life for $100,000. Intervention B can save a life for $1 million. Enormous amounts of money are spent on Intervention B, which is popular among normie donors for reasons that are unrelated to effectiveness. If you can shift $1 billion from Intervention B to Intervention A, you save 9,000 lives. Thus working to shift this money is cost-effective — competitive with GiveWell top charities in expectation — if it costs less than $45 million to do so (~$5,000 per life).
More generally, shifting money by ~0.1 GDx is cost-effective even if you’re shifting money far below the cost-effectiveness bar as long as you have 100x leverage over the money you are shifting.
I don’t think opportunities like this are super easy to find, but it seems plausible to me that the following avenues will contain promising options:
Simply working in a position with very high leverage over funds moved (e.g. in government or at a major normie philanthropy)
Promoting effective interventions in areas where (a) lots of money is spent and (b) the dominant intervention is not effective
Value of information interventions that have a clear effect on decision-making
Some kinds of journalism
I agree that there is impact to be found here, but the framing in the main post seemed to not consider the effective giving ecosystem as it currently is.
I’m still saying that this area is neglected. I’m trying to give more context, rather than telling people to not work on it. In my own advising I’ve recommended a lot of people to consider these wider areas.