It might be that the strongest reason to prioritize GHD is because of flow-through effects, as you’ve suggested. But I don’t think that those who prioritize GHD generally actually do so for that reason. They care about saving and improving people’s lives in the near term, and the units they use (QALYs, income doublings, WELLBYs) and stories they tell (the drowning child) reflect that.
If GHD was trying to optimize for robustly increasing long-term human capacity, I think the GHD portfolio of interventions would look very different. It might include certain longtermist cause areas such as improving institutional decisionmaking. It would be surprising if the best interventions when optimizing for longterm flow-through effects were also the best when optimizing for immediate effects on individuals. If you’re optimizing for flow-through effects, I agree that it’s non-obvious whether GHD or AW is better, but I think you probably shouldn’t be donating to either of those!
I think GHD donors choose GHD over AW simply because they care overwhelmingly more about humans than nonhuman animals. That’s also why they usually ignore animal effects in their cost-effectiveness analyses, even though those effects would swamp the effects on humans for many GHD interventions. If they were trying to impartially help others in the near term, they would choose AW.
Here’s a classification of GHD/AW which I think is more relevant to neartermists’ revealed preferences: The best impartial neartermist interventions are AW. The best neartermist interventions ignoring nonhuman animals are GHD. Under that classification, fetal welfare would be GHD.
I agree that most GHD donors don’t consciously conceive of things as I’ve suggested. But I think the most coherent idealization of their preferences would lead in the direction I’m suggesting. It’s even possible that they are subconsciously (and imperfectly) tracking something like my suggestion. It would be interesting to see whether most accept or reject the idea that fetal anesthesia or (say) elder care are “relevantly similar” to saving children. Since metrics like QALYs (esp. for young people) and income-doublings correlate strongly with capacity growth, I don’t take them to be evidence either way.
I also agree that my suggested reconceptualization could lead to some broader changes to the GHD portfolio, though it’s important not to forget the “robust” part of it. If you have a pessimistic prior about narrowly-targeted attempts to improve the long-term future, general improvements to human health, education, and economic growth seem like a pretty natural alternative to me.
But I’m afraid I’ve gotten pretty far astray from the topic of your original post! I’ve drafted up an attempt to explain my views on EA “cause buckets” more fully, and will aim to post it tomorrow. [Update: here!] Thanks again for the stimulating discussion.
It might be that the strongest reason to prioritize GHD is because of flow-through effects, as you’ve suggested. But I don’t think that those who prioritize GHD generally actually do so for that reason. They care about saving and improving people’s lives in the near term, and the units they use (QALYs, income doublings, WELLBYs) and stories they tell (the drowning child) reflect that.
If GHD was trying to optimize for robustly increasing long-term human capacity, I think the GHD portfolio of interventions would look very different. It might include certain longtermist cause areas such as improving institutional decisionmaking. It would be surprising if the best interventions when optimizing for longterm flow-through effects were also the best when optimizing for immediate effects on individuals. If you’re optimizing for flow-through effects, I agree that it’s non-obvious whether GHD or AW is better, but I think you probably shouldn’t be donating to either of those!
I think GHD donors choose GHD over AW simply because they care overwhelmingly more about humans than nonhuman animals. That’s also why they usually ignore animal effects in their cost-effectiveness analyses, even though those effects would swamp the effects on humans for many GHD interventions. If they were trying to impartially help others in the near term, they would choose AW.
Here’s a classification of GHD/AW which I think is more relevant to neartermists’ revealed preferences: The best impartial neartermist interventions are AW. The best neartermist interventions ignoring nonhuman animals are GHD. Under that classification, fetal welfare would be GHD.
Thanks, this has been a helpful discussion.
I agree that most GHD donors don’t consciously conceive of things as I’ve suggested. But I think the most coherent idealization of their preferences would lead in the direction I’m suggesting. It’s even possible that they are subconsciously (and imperfectly) tracking something like my suggestion. It would be interesting to see whether most accept or reject the idea that fetal anesthesia or (say) elder care are “relevantly similar” to saving children. Since metrics like QALYs (esp. for young people) and income-doublings correlate strongly with capacity growth, I don’t take them to be evidence either way.
I also agree that my suggested reconceptualization could lead to some broader changes to the GHD portfolio, though it’s important not to forget the “robust” part of it. If you have a pessimistic prior about narrowly-targeted attempts to improve the long-term future, general improvements to human health, education, and economic growth seem like a pretty natural alternative to me.
But I’m afraid I’ve gotten pretty far astray from the topic of your original post! I’ve drafted up an attempt to explain my views on EA “cause buckets” more fully, and will aim to post it tomorrow. [Update: here!] Thanks again for the stimulating discussion.