Thanks for the post. It has turned this into currently one of the most interesting discussions in the Forum. However, I’m not convinced that donor coordination among EAs is particular hard by your argument (what makes it hard is that we might have conflicting goals, such as near-term vs. long-term, or environmentalism vs. wild animal suffering, etc. and even so EAs are the only guys talking about things like moral trade).
Actually, I’m particular suspicious of the recommendation “fund weird things”—I mean, yeah, I agree you should fund a project that you think has high-expected value and is neglected because only you know it, but… are you sure you paid all the relevant informational costs before getting to this conclusion? I guess I prefer to pay some EA orgs to select what wild things are worth funding.
I’ll probably have to write a whole post to deal with this, but my TL;DR is: the movement / community Effective Altruism exists for us to efficiently deal with the informational costs and coordination necessary to do the most good. It isn’t a movement created only to convince people they should do the most good (EAs often don’t need to be convinced of this, but yeah, convincing others sure helps) or so they could feel less lonely doing it (but again, it helps) - I think we need a movement especially because we are trying to find out what is the most good you can do. It turns out it is more effective to do that in community of high-skilled and like-minded (up to a point: diversity is an asset, too) people. So when someone say “fund weird things”, I want to reply something like “Sure… but how do I do it effectively, instead of just like another normie?”
Of course, I’m afraid someone might accuse me of misunderstanding the case for “fund weird things”, but my point is precisely that this advice should have some caveats added to prevent misunderstanding. Though I agree EAs should look for more low-hanging fruit in the wild, they should also think about how, as a group, they could coordinate to make the most of it.
Thanks for the post. It has turned this into currently one of the most interesting discussions in the Forum.
However, I’m not convinced that donor coordination among EAs is particular hard by your argument (what makes it hard is that we might have conflicting goals, such as near-term vs. long-term, or environmentalism vs. wild animal suffering, etc. and even so EAs are the only guys talking about things like moral trade).
Actually, I’m particular suspicious of the recommendation “fund weird things”—I mean, yeah, I agree you should fund a project that you think has high-expected value and is neglected because only you know it, but… are you sure you paid all the relevant informational costs before getting to this conclusion? I guess I prefer to pay some EA orgs to select what wild things are worth funding.
I’ll probably have to write a whole post to deal with this, but my TL;DR is: the movement / community Effective Altruism exists for us to efficiently deal with the informational costs and coordination necessary to do the most good. It isn’t a movement created only to convince people they should do the most good (EAs often don’t need to be convinced of this, but yeah, convincing others sure helps) or so they could feel less lonely doing it (but again, it helps) - I think we need a movement especially because we are trying to find out what is the most good you can do. It turns out it is more effective to do that in community of high-skilled and like-minded (up to a point: diversity is an asset, too) people. So when someone say “fund weird things”, I want to reply something like “Sure… but how do I do it effectively, instead of just like another normie?”
Of course, I’m afraid someone might accuse me of misunderstanding the case for “fund weird things”, but my point is precisely that this advice should have some caveats added to prevent misunderstanding. Though I agree EAs should look for more low-hanging fruit in the wild, they should also think about how, as a group, they could coordinate to make the most of it.