Thanks for posting this, super interesting! I was nicely surprised to find this forum post in the Wikipedia page on the āScientific Charity Movementā.
I think that post highlights some important differences. Some interesting quotes: > EAs are also much less confident that they know what people need better than they do. > To many EAs, dividing the poor into deserving and undeserving groups just doesnāt make sense > standards of evidence are much better now than they were over a century ago > errors of charity that EA is a response to generally include the errors of SC > The main way I see the comparison as a warning is that EA could end up somewhere where EA continues to talk in a scientific way, confidence goes up, standards of evidence fall, and EA ends up pushing hard on things that arenāt actually that important.
On your point on not knowing what people want, I really like that EA in general seem pretty positive to just give direct cash transfers. When they even are unconditional, it seems at first look to me that it is quite unlikely to be judged harshly in the future.
Hi Lorenzo, can you please expand on ā> EAs are also much less confident that they know what people need better than they doā?
In my experience, EA has an aura of being confident that their conclusions are more accurate or effective than othersā (including beneficiaries) because people within EA arrive at their conclusions using robust tools.
On ābeneficiaries preferencesā I agree with you that the vast majority of EA in practice discounts them heavily, probably much more than when the post I linked to was written.
They are definitely taken into account though. I really like this document from a GiveWell staff member, and I think itās representative of how a large part of EA not focused on x-risk/ālongermism thinks about these things. Especially now that GiveDirectly has been removed from GiveWell recommended charities, which I think aura-wise is a big change. But lots of EAs still donate to GiveDirectly, and GiveDirectly still gives talks in EA conferences and is on EA job boards.
I personally really like the recent posts and comments advocating for more research, and I think taking into account beneficiaries preferences is a tricky moral problem for interventions targeting humans.
Thanks for posting this, super interesting! I was nicely surprised to find this forum post in the Wikipedia page on the āScientific Charity Movementā.
I think that post highlights some important differences. Some interesting quotes:
> EAs are also much less confident that they know what people need better than they do.
> To many EAs, dividing the poor into deserving and undeserving groups just doesnāt make sense
> standards of evidence are much better now than they were over a century ago
> errors of charity that EA is a response to generally include the errors of SC
> The main way I see the comparison as a warning is that EA could end up somewhere where EA continues to talk in a scientific way, confidence goes up, standards of evidence fall, and EA ends up pushing hard on things that arenāt actually that important.
On your point on not knowing what people want, I really like that EA in general seem pretty positive to just give direct cash transfers. When they even are unconditional, it seems at first look to me that it is quite unlikely to be judged harshly in the future.
Hi Lorenzo, can you please expand on ā> EAs are also much less confident that they know what people need better than they doā?
In my experience, EA has an aura of being confident that their conclusions are more accurate or effective than othersā (including beneficiaries) because people within EA arrive at their conclusions using robust tools.
Hi Hannah! My very personal perspective, Iām still relatively new to EA.
On āuncertainty in generalā, I see lots of posts on Moral Uncertainty, Cluelessness, Model Uncertainty, āwiden your confidence intervalsā, āwe consider our cost-effectiveness numbers to be extremely roughā, and so on, even after spending tens of millions/āyear in research.
I think this is very different from the attitude of the Scientific Charity movement.
On ābeneficiaries preferencesā I agree with you that the vast majority of EA in practice discounts them heavily, probably much more than when the post I linked to was written.
They are definitely taken into account though. I really like this document from a GiveWell staff member, and I think itās representative of how a large part of EA not focused on x-risk/ālongermism thinks about these things. Especially now that GiveDirectly has been removed from GiveWell recommended charities, which I think aura-wise is a big change.
But lots of EAs still donate to GiveDirectly, and GiveDirectly still gives talks in EA conferences and is on EA job boards.
I personally really like the recent posts and comments advocating for more research, and I think taking into account beneficiaries preferences is a tricky moral problem for interventions targeting humans.
Also probably worth mentioning āBig Tent EAā and āEA as a questionā.