Oh, no, I’m definitely not making that argument. Most decisions have to be made in the face of some uncertainty (uncertainty is a key element of risk: without uncertainty there is no risk and thus no decision to make). I was arguing that we shouldn’t jump to the comfortable conclusion that we’ve saved lives by giving to organisation X based on some statistical probability. And if you evaluate both of your charity choices with that caveat in mind, the differences might be less clear.
Effective altruism focuses on doing the most good with your donation, but there can be a disconnect between the most hypothetical good and the most actual good that gets done with your donation in the end. I don’t think this should affect decision making, but I do think it should affect our confidence in how much good we may actually have done. Tom wrote in his post “If they’re even roughly correct, I’d save several lives if I donated £5,000 to AMF this year.” I was just pointing out that it would be more accurate to say “I might save several lives” or “there’s a strong statistical probability that I could save several lives” rather than “I would save several lives,” because that sense of certainty seemed to play a role in his decision.
You’re right, I didn’t actually mean that I’d certainly save several lives, in the same way that I would if I funded 2 life-saving operations which wouldn’t otherwise have happened. Instead I meant that I’d save several lives in expectation—i.e. that part of the expected value of my donation is the saving of those lives. I didn’t spell that out to avoid being too verbose. (And you’re right that this these lives saved are only part of the value of donations to AMF—as you say, they also spare large numbers of people the miseries of malaria, whether or not they would have died without bednets.)
Oh, no, I’m definitely not making that argument. Most decisions have to be made in the face of some uncertainty (uncertainty is a key element of risk: without uncertainty there is no risk and thus no decision to make). I was arguing that we shouldn’t jump to the comfortable conclusion that we’ve saved lives by giving to organisation X based on some statistical probability. And if you evaluate both of your charity choices with that caveat in mind, the differences might be less clear.
Effective altruism focuses on doing the most good with your donation, but there can be a disconnect between the most hypothetical good and the most actual good that gets done with your donation in the end. I don’t think this should affect decision making, but I do think it should affect our confidence in how much good we may actually have done. Tom wrote in his post “If they’re even roughly correct, I’d save several lives if I donated £5,000 to AMF this year.” I was just pointing out that it would be more accurate to say “I might save several lives” or “there’s a strong statistical probability that I could save several lives” rather than “I would save several lives,” because that sense of certainty seemed to play a role in his decision.
You’re right, I didn’t actually mean that I’d certainly save several lives, in the same way that I would if I funded 2 life-saving operations which wouldn’t otherwise have happened. Instead I meant that I’d save several lives in expectation—i.e. that part of the expected value of my donation is the saving of those lives. I didn’t spell that out to avoid being too verbose. (And you’re right that this these lives saved are only part of the value of donations to AMF—as you say, they also spare large numbers of people the miseries of malaria, whether or not they would have died without bednets.)
I think we’re all basically agreeing with each other here now. Language is indeed a difficult tool.