I have significant concerns with some of the Global Health and Wellbeing (GH&W) work carried out in the EA community, for example by GiveWell or the Happier Lives Institute (HLI). And these aren’t just the commonly-cited ones e.g. that this work isn’t obviously good for the future in expectation or that it ignores animals.
One concern I have is that GH&W work tends to only evaluate existing interventions. The problem with this is that you completely ignore what might be possible with more research. For example, HLI recommends StrongMinds, a mental health charity that treats women with depression in Africa through free, group talk therapy. I’m sure StrongMinds is an excellent charity, but the opportunity cost of giving to StrongMinds is not giving to say world-class researchers looking into psychedelics to treat depression. I’m not saying the money should go to the research—I’m not sure—which is exactly the problem. I’m not sure because organisations like HLI are not investigating the answer. An approach of relying on self-reported wellbeing can only recommend existing interventions, and this may be inhibiting substantial progress.
Further research is only one of multiple things that GH&W work cannot or does not evaluate. Neither GiveWell nor HLI really has the tools to evaluate say climate change interventions—which likely delivers most of its value to future generations. It seems to me that GiveWell could evaluate such interventions, perhaps with difficulty, but doesn’t. Meanwhile I’m not sure how HLI could do so—it’s pretty impossible to evaluate the effect of climate change prevention on self-reported wellbeing. The general criticism here is that GH&W work often ignores (near) future people, which seems unreasonable. And don’t get me started on the far future ones…
I have significant concerns with some of the Global Health and Wellbeing (GH&W) work carried out in the EA community, for example by GiveWell or the Happier Lives Institute (HLI). And these aren’t just the commonly-cited ones e.g. that this work isn’t obviously good for the future in expectation or that it ignores animals.
One concern I have is that GH&W work tends to only evaluate existing interventions. The problem with this is that you completely ignore what might be possible with more research. For example, HLI recommends StrongMinds, a mental health charity that treats women with depression in Africa through free, group talk therapy. I’m sure StrongMinds is an excellent charity, but the opportunity cost of giving to StrongMinds is not giving to say world-class researchers looking into psychedelics to treat depression. I’m not saying the money should go to the research—I’m not sure—which is exactly the problem. I’m not sure because organisations like HLI are not investigating the answer. An approach of relying on self-reported wellbeing can only recommend existing interventions, and this may be inhibiting substantial progress.
Further research is only one of multiple things that GH&W work cannot or does not evaluate. Neither GiveWell nor HLI really has the tools to evaluate say climate change interventions—which likely delivers most of its value to future generations. It seems to me that GiveWell could evaluate such interventions, perhaps with difficulty, but doesn’t. Meanwhile I’m not sure how HLI could do so—it’s pretty impossible to evaluate the effect of climate change prevention on self-reported wellbeing. The general criticism here is that GH&W work often ignores (near) future people, which seems unreasonable. And don’t get me started on the far future ones…
Any thoughts?