Hi! As you point out, the 1000x multiplier I quoted comes from Vascoâs analysis, which also uses Sauliusâs numbers and Rethinkâs moral weights.
The cross cause calculator came out about two weeks before I published my initial post. By then, Iâd been working on that post for about seven months. Though it would have been a good idea, given my urge to get the post published, I didnât consider checking the cross cause calculatorâs implied multiplier before posting.
Iâve just spent some time trying to figure out where the discrepancy between Vascoâs multiplier and the cross cause calculatorâs multiplier comes from:
They roughly agree on the GHD bar of ~20 DALYs per $1000.
Fixing a constant welfare range versus a probablistic range doesnât seem to make a huge difference for the calculatorâs result.
The main difference seems to be that the cross cause calculator assumes corporate campaigns avert between 160 and 3.6k chicken suffering-years per dollar. I donât know the precise definition of that unit, and Vascoâs analysis doesnât place intermediate values in terms of that unit, so I donât know exactly where the discrepancy breaks down from there. However, thereâs probably at least an order of magnitude difference between Vascoâs implied chicken suffering-years per dollar and the cross cause calculatorâs.
My very tentative guess is that this may be coming from Vascoâs very high weightings of excruciating and disabling-level pain, which some commenters found unintuitive, and could be driving that result. (I personally found these weightings quite intuitive after thinking about how Iâd take time tradeoffs between these types of pains, but reasonable people may disagree.)
It could also be that Rethink is using a lower Saulius number to give a more precise marginal cost-effectiveness estimate, even if the historical cost-effectiveness was much higher. That would be consistent with Open Philâs statement that they think the marginal cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns is much lower than the historical average.
I think this is a great find, and Iâm very open to updating on what I personally think the animal welfare vs GHD multiplier is, depending on how that discrepancy breaks down. I do think itâs worth noting that every one of these comparisons still found animal welfare orders of magnitude better than GHD, which is the headline result I think is most important for this debate. But your findings do illustrate that thereâs still a ton of uncertainty in these numbers.
(@Vasco Grilođ¸ Iâd love to hear your perspective on all of this!)
I have played around with Rethink Prioritiesâ (RPâs) cross-cause cost-effectiveness model (CCM), but I have not been relying on its results. The app does not provide any justification for the default parameters, so I do not trust these.
titotal, I would be curious to know which changes you would make to my cost-effectiveness estimates of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare (1.51 k times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities) and Shrimp Welfare Projectâs Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI; 43.5 k times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities) to make them worse than that of GiveWellâs top charities.
They roughly agree on the GHD bar of ~20 DALYs per $1000.
The CCM says GiveWellâs bar is 0.02 DALY/â$ (as above), but I think it is around 0.01 DALY/â$. According to Open Philanthropy, âGiveWell uses moral weights for child deaths that would be consistent with assuming 51 years of foregone life in the DALY framework (though that is not how they reach the conclusion)â. GiveWellâs top charities save a life for around 5 k$, so their cost-effectiveness is around 0.01 DALY/â$ ( = 51/â(5*10^3)). Am I missing something, @Derek Shiller?
My very tentative guess is that this may be coming from Vascoâs very high weightings of excruciating and disabling-level pain, which some commenters found unintuitive, and could be driving that result. (I personally found these weightings quite intuitive after thinking about how Iâd take time tradeoffs between these types of pains, but reasonable people may disagree.)
Using the geometric mean of each of the ranges, I conclude HSI is 48.8 times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities, i.e. 0.112 % (= 48.8/â(43.5*10^3)) as high as originally. I think RPâs assumptions underestimate the badness of severe pain. If 1 year of excruciating pain is equivalent to 94.9 DALY (= (60*150)^0.5), 15.2 min (= 24*60/â94.9) of excruciating pain neutralise 1 day of fully healthy life, whereas I would say adding this much pain to a fully healthy life would make it clearly negative. Here is how the Welfare Footprint Project defines excruciating pain (emphasis mine):
All conditions and events associated with extreme levels of pain that are not normally tolerated even if only for a few seconds. In humans, it would mark the threshold of pain under which many people choose to take their lives rather than endure the pain. This is the case, for example, of scalding and severe burning events. Behavioral patterns associated with experiences in this category may include loud screaming, involuntary shaking, extreme muscle tension, or extreme restlessness. Another criterion is the manifestation of behaviors that individuals would strongly refrain from displaying under normal circumstances, as they threaten body integrity (e.g. running into hazardous areas or exposing oneself to sources of danger, such as predators, as a result of pain or of attempts to alleviate it). The attribution of conditions to this level must therefore be done cautiously. Concealment of pain is not possible.
The global healthy life expectancy in 2021 was 62.2 years, so maybe one can roughly say that a child taking their live due to excruciating pain would loose 50 years of fully healthy life. Under my assumptions, 0.864 s of excruciating pain neutralise 1 day of fully healthy life, so 4.38 h (= 0.864*50*365.25/â60^2) of excruciating pain neutralise 50 years of fully healthy life. However, I guess many people take their lives (if they can) after a few seconds (not hours) of excruciating pain. So, even if people should hold excruciating pain a few orders of magnitude longer to maximise their own welfare, my numbers could still make sense. 4.38 h is 5.26 k (= 4.38*60^2/â3) times as long as 3 s (a few seconds). One complication is that people may be maximising their welfare in taking their lives because excruciating pain quickly decreases their remaining healthy life expectancy, such that there is a decreased opportunity cost of taking their lives.
I think this is a great find, and Iâm very open to updating on what I personally think the animal welfare vs GHD multiplier is, depending on how that discrepancy breaks down. I do think itâs worth noting that every one of these comparisons still found animal welfare orders of magnitude better than GHD, which is the headline result I think is most important for this debate. But your findings do illustrate that thereâs still a ton of uncertainty in these numbers.
Hi! As you point out, the 1000x multiplier I quoted comes from Vascoâs analysis, which also uses Sauliusâs numbers and Rethinkâs moral weights.
The cross cause calculator came out about two weeks before I published my initial post. By then, Iâd been working on that post for about seven months. Though it would have been a good idea, given my urge to get the post published, I didnât consider checking the cross cause calculatorâs implied multiplier before posting.
Iâve just spent some time trying to figure out where the discrepancy between Vascoâs multiplier and the cross cause calculatorâs multiplier comes from:
They roughly agree on the GHD bar of ~20 DALYs per $1000.
Fixing a constant welfare range versus a probablistic range doesnât seem to make a huge difference for the calculatorâs result.
The main difference seems to be that the cross cause calculator assumes corporate campaigns avert between 160 and 3.6k chicken suffering-years per dollar. I donât know the precise definition of that unit, and Vascoâs analysis doesnât place intermediate values in terms of that unit, so I donât know exactly where the discrepancy breaks down from there. However, thereâs probably at least an order of magnitude difference between Vascoâs implied chicken suffering-years per dollar and the cross cause calculatorâs.
My very tentative guess is that this may be coming from Vascoâs very high weightings of excruciating and disabling-level pain, which some commenters found unintuitive, and could be driving that result. (I personally found these weightings quite intuitive after thinking about how Iâd take time tradeoffs between these types of pains, but reasonable people may disagree.)
It could also be that Rethink is using a lower Saulius number to give a more precise marginal cost-effectiveness estimate, even if the historical cost-effectiveness was much higher. That would be consistent with Open Philâs statement that they think the marginal cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns is much lower than the historical average.
I think this is a great find, and Iâm very open to updating on what I personally think the animal welfare vs GHD multiplier is, depending on how that discrepancy breaks down. I do think itâs worth noting that every one of these comparisons still found animal welfare orders of magnitude better than GHD, which is the headline result I think is most important for this debate. But your findings do illustrate that thereâs still a ton of uncertainty in these numbers.
(@Vasco Grilođ¸ Iâd love to hear your perspective on all of this!)
Thanks for the discussion, titotal and Ariel!
I have played around with Rethink Prioritiesâ (RPâs) cross-cause cost-effectiveness model (CCM), but I have not been relying on its results. The app does not provide any justification for the default parameters, so I do not trust these.
titotal, I would be curious to know which changes you would make to my cost-effectiveness estimates of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare (1.51 k times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities) and Shrimp Welfare Projectâs Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI; 43.5 k times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities) to make them worse than that of GiveWellâs top charities.
The CCM says GiveWellâs bar is 0.02 DALY/â$ (as above), but I think it is around 0.01 DALY/â$. According to Open Philanthropy, âGiveWell uses moral weights for child deaths that would be consistent with assuming 51 years of foregone life in the DALY framework (though that is not how they reach the conclusion)â. GiveWellâs top charities save a life for around 5 k$, so their cost-effectiveness is around 0.01 DALY/â$ ( = 51/â(5*10^3)). Am I missing something, @Derek Shiller?
Yes, I think this is a big part of it. From RPâs report on How Can Risk Aversion Affect Your Cause Prioritization? (published in November 2023):
Using the geometric mean of each of the ranges, I conclude HSI is 48.8 times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities, i.e. 0.112 % (= 48.8/â(43.5*10^3)) as high as originally. I think RPâs assumptions underestimate the badness of severe pain. If 1 year of excruciating pain is equivalent to 94.9 DALY (= (60*150)^0.5), 15.2 min (= 24*60/â94.9) of excruciating pain neutralise 1 day of fully healthy life, whereas I would say adding this much pain to a fully healthy life would make it clearly negative. Here is how the Welfare Footprint Project defines excruciating pain (emphasis mine):
The global healthy life expectancy in 2021 was 62.2 years, so maybe one can roughly say that a child taking their live due to excruciating pain would loose 50 years of fully healthy life. Under my assumptions, 0.864 s of excruciating pain neutralise 1 day of fully healthy life, so 4.38 h (= 0.864*50*365.25/â60^2) of excruciating pain neutralise 50 years of fully healthy life. However, I guess many people take their lives (if they can) after a few seconds (not hours) of excruciating pain. So, even if people should hold excruciating pain a few orders of magnitude longer to maximise their own welfare, my numbers could still make sense. 4.38 h is 5.26 k (= 4.38*60^2/â3) times as long as 3 s (a few seconds). One complication is that people may be maximising their welfare in taking their lives because excruciating pain quickly decreases their remaining healthy life expectancy, such that there is a decreased opportunity cost of taking their lives.
Agreed!