Yes, it sounds like MacAskill’s motivation is about PR and community health (“getting people out of bed in the morning”). I think it’s important to note when we’re funding things because of direct expected value, vs these indirect effects.
Just to be clear, I’m pretty sure the idea “The non-longtermist interventions are just community health and PR” is impractical and will be wobbly (a long term weakness) because:
The people leading these projects (and their large communities), who are substantial EA talent, won’t at all accept the idea that they are window dressing or there to make longtermists feel good.
Many would find that a slur, and that’s not healthiest to propagate from a community cohesion standpoint.
Even if the “indirect effects” model is mostly correct, it’s dubious at best who gets to decide which neartermist project is a “look/feel good project” that EA should fund, and this is problematic.
Basically, as a lowly peasant, IMO, I’m OK with MacAskill, Holden deciding this, because I think there is more information about the faculty of these people and how they think and they seem pretty reasonable.
But having this perspective and decision making apparatus seems wonky. Like, will neartermist leaders just spend a lot of their time pitching and analyzing flow through effects?
$1B a year (to GiveWell) seems large for PR and community health, especially since the spend on EA human capital from those funds is lower than other cause areas
To get a sense of the problems, this post here is centered entirely around the anomaly of EA vegan diets, which they correctly point out doesn’t pass a literal cost effectiveness test. They then spend the rest of the post drawing on this to promote their alternate cause area.
I think you can see how this would be problematic and self-defeating if EAs actually used this particular theory of change to fund interventions.
So I think drawing the straight line here, that these interventions are just community health and PR, is stilted and probably bad.
MacAskill is making the point that these interventions have value, that longtermists recognize, and that longtermists love this stuff in a very positive, emotional sense everyone can relate to.
I’m really doubtful (but I didn’t read the whole interview) that MacAskill believes that the main model of funding these interventions should be the instrumental utility in some narrow sense of PR or emotions.
Yes, it sounds like MacAskill’s motivation is about PR and community health (“getting people out of bed in the morning”). I think it’s important to note when we’re funding things because of direct expected value, vs these indirect effects.
I think what you wrote is a fair take.
Just to be clear, I’m pretty sure the idea “The non-longtermist interventions are just community health and PR” is impractical and will be wobbly (a long term weakness) because:
The people leading these projects (and their large communities), who are substantial EA talent, won’t at all accept the idea that they are window dressing or there to make longtermists feel good.
Many would find that a slur, and that’s not healthiest to propagate from a community cohesion standpoint.
Even if the “indirect effects” model is mostly correct, it’s dubious at best who gets to decide which neartermist project is a “look/feel good project” that EA should fund, and this is problematic.
Basically, as a lowly peasant, IMO, I’m OK with MacAskill, Holden deciding this, because I think there is more information about the faculty of these people and how they think and they seem pretty reasonable.
But having this perspective and decision making apparatus seems wonky. Like, will neartermist leaders just spend a lot of their time pitching and analyzing flow through effects?
$1B a year (to GiveWell) seems large for PR and community health, especially since the spend on EA human capital from those funds is lower than other cause areas
To get a sense of the problems, this post here is centered entirely around the anomaly of EA vegan diets, which they correctly point out doesn’t pass a literal cost effectiveness test. They then spend the rest of the post drawing on this to promote their alternate cause area.
I think you can see how this would be problematic and self-defeating if EAs actually used this particular theory of change to fund interventions.
So I think drawing the straight line here, that these interventions are just community health and PR, is stilted and probably bad.
MacAskill is making the point that these interventions have value, that longtermists recognize, and that longtermists love this stuff in a very positive, emotional sense everyone can relate to.
I’m really doubtful (but I didn’t read the whole interview) that MacAskill believes that the main model of funding these interventions should be the instrumental utility in some narrow sense of PR or emotions.