I don’t think you’ll want to equate being a meta org with what proportion of your time you spend on outreach. Some object level charities do a lot of outreach too. If AMF started spending 25% of its budget on marketing, would it become a meta-charity?
Sure 80k puts more effort into outreach than GiveWell, but the core model is very similar.
Fair enough, I don’t particularly care about which organization is a “meta org” and which one is not, I mostly care about where these meta traps apply and where they don’t. Probably should have talked about “meta work” instead of “meta org”. Anyway, it does seem like the traps apply to the outreach portion of 80k and not to GiveWell (since they barely have any outreach).
If AMF started spending a lot on marketing, I would count that as “meta work”, though I think a lot of these traps would not apply to that specific scenario.
At a glance, it seems like most of the meta-traps don’t apply to stuff like promotion of object-level causes.
That’s why Peter Hurford distinguished between second-level and first-level meta, and focused his criticism on the second-level.
80,000 Hours and GiveWell are both mainly doing first-level meta (i.e. we promote specific first order opportunities for impact); though we also do some second-level meta (promoting EA as an idea). 80k does more second-level meta day-to-day than GiveWell, though GiveWell explains their ultimate mission in second-level meta terms:
We aim to direct as much funding as possible of this large pool to the best giving opportunities we can find, and create a global, public, open conversation about how best to help people. We picture a world in which donors reward charities for effectiveness in improving lives.
One other quick point is that I don’t think coordination problems arise especially from meta-work. Rather, coordination problems can arise anywhere in which the best action for you depends on what someone else is going to do. E.g. you can get coordination problems among global health donors (GiveWell has written a lot about this). The points you list under “coordination problems” seem more like examples of why the counterfactuals are hard to assess, which is already under trap 8.
At a glance, it seems like most of the meta-traps don’t apply to stuff like promotion of object-level causes. That’s why Peter Hurford distinguished between second-level and first-level meta, and focused his criticism on the second-level.
I mostly agree, but I think a lot of them do apply to first-level meta in many cases. For example I talked about how they apply to GWWC, which is first-level meta (I think).
80,000 Hours and GiveWell are both mainly doing first-level meta (i.e. we promote specific first order opportunities for impact)
Yes, and I specifically didn’t include that kind of first-level meta work. I think the parts of first-level meta that are affected by these traps are efforts to fundraise for effective organizations, mainly ones that target EAs specifically. Even for general fundraising though, I think several traps still do apply, such as trap #1, #6 and #8.
One other quick point is that I don’t think coordination problems arise especially from meta-work.
I agree, I think it’s just disproportionately the case that donors to meta work are not taking into account these considerations. GiveWell and ACE take these considerations into account when making recommendations, so anyone relying on those recommendations has already “taken it into account”. This may arise in X-risk, I’m not sure—certainly it seems to apply to the part of X-risk that is about convincing other people to work on X-risk.
The points you list under “coordination problems” seem more like examples of why the counterfactuals are hard to assess, which is already under trap 8.
Well, even if each organization assesses counterfactuals perfectly, you still have the problem that the sum of the impacts across all organizations may be larger than 100%. The made-up example with Alice was meant to illustrate a case where each organization assesses their impact perfectly, comes to a ratio of 2:1 correctly, but in aggregate they would have spent more than was warranted.
I agree, I think it’s just disproportionately the case that donors to meta work are not taking into account these considerations.
What makes you think this? I found this post interesting, but not new; it’s all stuff I’ve thought about quite hard before. I wouldn’t have thought I was roughly representative of meta donors here (I certainly know people who have thought harder), though I’d be happy for other such donors to contradict me.
I’ve had conversations with people who said they’ve donated to GWWC because of high leverage ratios, and my impression based on those conversations is that they take the multiplier fairly literally (“even if it’s off by an order of magnitude it’s still worthwhile”) without really considering the alternatives.
In addition, it’s really easy to find all of the arguments in favor of meta, including (many of) the arguments that impact is probably being undercounted—you just have to read the fundraising posts by meta orgs. I don’t know of any post other than Hurford’s that suggests considerations against meta. It took me about a year to generate all of the ideas not in that post, and it certainly helped that I was working in meta myself.
I think the arguments in favor of meta are intuitive, but not easy to find. For one thing, the org’s posts tend to be org-specific (unsurprisngly) rather than a general defense of meta work. In fact, to the best of my knowledge the best general arguments have never been made on the forum at the top level because it’s sort-of-assumed that everybody knows them. So while you’re saying Peter’s post is the only such post you could find, that’s still more than the reverse (and with your post, it’s now 2 − 0).
At the comment level it’s easy to find plenty of examples of people making anti-meta arguments.
I think it’s not quite what you’re looking for, but I wrote How valuable is movement growth?, which is an article analysing the long-term counterfactual impact of different types of short-term movement growth effects. (It doesn’t properly speak to the empirical question of how short-term effort into meta work translates into short-term movement growth effects.)
I think the arguments in favor of meta are intuitive, but not easy to find. For one thing, the org’s posts tend to be org-specific (unsurprisngly) rather than a general defense of meta work.
Huh, there is a surprising lack of a canonical article that makes the case for meta work. (Just tried to find one.) That said, it’s very common when getting interested in EA to hear about GiveWell, GWWC and 80K, and to look them up, which gives you a sense of the arguments for meta.
Also, I would actually prefer that the arguments against also be org-specific, since that’s typically more decision-relevant, but a) that’s more work and b) it’s hard to do without actually being a part of the organization.
Anyway, even though there’s not a general article arguing for meta (which I am surprised by), that doesn’t particularly change my belief that a lot of people know the arguments for but not the arguments against. This has increased my estimate of the number of people who know neither the arguments for nor the arguments against.
I’m hoping/planning to plug both of those holes (a lack of org-specific criticism, and the uncomplied general arguments in favour) in the next few weeks, so did want to double-check that there wasn’t a canonical piece that I was missing.
I don’t think you’ll want to equate being a meta org with what proportion of your time you spend on outreach. Some object level charities do a lot of outreach too. If AMF started spending 25% of its budget on marketing, would it become a meta-charity?
Sure 80k puts more effort into outreach than GiveWell, but the core model is very similar.
Fair enough, I don’t particularly care about which organization is a “meta org” and which one is not, I mostly care about where these meta traps apply and where they don’t. Probably should have talked about “meta work” instead of “meta org”. Anyway, it does seem like the traps apply to the outreach portion of 80k and not to GiveWell (since they barely have any outreach).
If AMF started spending a lot on marketing, I would count that as “meta work”, though I think a lot of these traps would not apply to that specific scenario.
At a glance, it seems like most of the meta-traps don’t apply to stuff like promotion of object-level causes.
That’s why Peter Hurford distinguished between second-level and first-level meta, and focused his criticism on the second-level.
80,000 Hours and GiveWell are both mainly doing first-level meta (i.e. we promote specific first order opportunities for impact); though we also do some second-level meta (promoting EA as an idea). 80k does more second-level meta day-to-day than GiveWell, though GiveWell explains their ultimate mission in second-level meta terms:
One other quick point is that I don’t think coordination problems arise especially from meta-work. Rather, coordination problems can arise anywhere in which the best action for you depends on what someone else is going to do. E.g. you can get coordination problems among global health donors (GiveWell has written a lot about this). The points you list under “coordination problems” seem more like examples of why the counterfactuals are hard to assess, which is already under trap 8.
I mostly agree, but I think a lot of them do apply to first-level meta in many cases. For example I talked about how they apply to GWWC, which is first-level meta (I think).
Yes, and I specifically didn’t include that kind of first-level meta work. I think the parts of first-level meta that are affected by these traps are efforts to fundraise for effective organizations, mainly ones that target EAs specifically. Even for general fundraising though, I think several traps still do apply, such as trap #1, #6 and #8.
I agree, I think it’s just disproportionately the case that donors to meta work are not taking into account these considerations. GiveWell and ACE take these considerations into account when making recommendations, so anyone relying on those recommendations has already “taken it into account”. This may arise in X-risk, I’m not sure—certainly it seems to apply to the part of X-risk that is about convincing other people to work on X-risk.
Well, even if each organization assesses counterfactuals perfectly, you still have the problem that the sum of the impacts across all organizations may be larger than 100%. The made-up example with Alice was meant to illustrate a case where each organization assesses their impact perfectly, comes to a ratio of 2:1 correctly, but in aggregate they would have spent more than was warranted.
What makes you think this? I found this post interesting, but not new; it’s all stuff I’ve thought about quite hard before. I wouldn’t have thought I was roughly representative of meta donors here (I certainly know people who have thought harder), though I’d be happy for other such donors to contradict me.
I’ve had conversations with people who said they’ve donated to GWWC because of high leverage ratios, and my impression based on those conversations is that they take the multiplier fairly literally (“even if it’s off by an order of magnitude it’s still worthwhile”) without really considering the alternatives.
In addition, it’s really easy to find all of the arguments in favor of meta, including (many of) the arguments that impact is probably being undercounted—you just have to read the fundraising posts by meta orgs. I don’t know of any post other than Hurford’s that suggests considerations against meta. It took me about a year to generate all of the ideas not in that post, and it certainly helped that I was working in meta myself.
I think the arguments in favor of meta are intuitive, but not easy to find. For one thing, the org’s posts tend to be org-specific (unsurprisngly) rather than a general defense of meta work. In fact, to the best of my knowledge the best general arguments have never been made on the forum at the top level because it’s sort-of-assumed that everybody knows them. So while you’re saying Peter’s post is the only such post you could find, that’s still more than the reverse (and with your post, it’s now 2 − 0).
At the comment level it’s easy to find plenty of examples of people making anti-meta arguments.
I think it’s not quite what you’re looking for, but I wrote How valuable is movement growth?, which is an article analysing the long-term counterfactual impact of different types of short-term movement growth effects. (It doesn’t properly speak to the empirical question of how short-term effort into meta work translates into short-term movement growth effects.)
Huh, there is a surprising lack of a canonical article that makes the case for meta work. (Just tried to find one.) That said, it’s very common when getting interested in EA to hear about GiveWell, GWWC and 80K, and to look them up, which gives you a sense of the arguments for meta.
Also, I would actually prefer that the arguments against also be org-specific, since that’s typically more decision-relevant, but a) that’s more work and b) it’s hard to do without actually being a part of the organization.
Anyway, even though there’s not a general article arguing for meta (which I am surprised by), that doesn’t particularly change my belief that a lot of people know the arguments for but not the arguments against. This has increased my estimate of the number of people who know neither the arguments for nor the arguments against.
Sure, I think we’re on the same page here.
I’m hoping/planning to plug both of those holes (a lack of org-specific criticism, and the uncomplied general arguments in favour) in the next few weeks, so did want to double-check that there wasn’t a canonical piece that I was missing.