[Edit: Note that @Alexander_Berger from OP provided a lengthy response, after I wrote this.]
My quick guess is that people at OP won’t want to (publicly) argue that this area is cost-effective with other top areas.
It’s their money, I won’t complain.
But at the same time, I want to avoid the trap of people on this forum assuming that their work is justified as being cost-effective with other top areas.
I think it’s easy for both: 1. OP doesn’t argue that its work represents Effective Altruism 2. Many people around Effective Altruism defer greatly to OP, and assume its actions are cost-effective in EA ways[1]
So to be clear, I think that typically, only one of those two points will be true. I assume it’s (1). And correspondingly, I imagine that many Effective Altruists should understand not to make many assumptions using public OP announcements like this about which topics are cost-effective.
There’s obviously one semi-interesting question, which is, “Okay, but then why should this announcement from OP be shown on the EA Forum, but not similar announcements from the Gates Foundation or similar?” This seems like a tricky question to answer. I think it’s good that this was posted here, but hope that readers don’t assume the wrong things about what it means. I assume that this was posted here roughly because OP is an org important for EA, not because OP is trying to argue that this is necessarily an EA cause.
By this, I mean, “Cost-effective in the sense that other EAs might themselves donate or contribute to the area.” Not in a sense like, “From OP’s specific perspective, this action accomplishes specific goals that makes it cost-effective for OP money specifically”
Thanks this is super helpful. I was trying to get my head around this announcement and that really helps.
Also to state the maybe obvious, you are allowed to ask whatever you want, and they are allowed to answer it or not! I for one appreciated the question in and of itself regardless of whether it gets answered
Clarifying this a bit more (from seeing the comments):
I assume that people close to this decision have reasons why they think this makes sense for OP, as a way to maximize OP’s contributions at some level.
This might well be for reasons like: 1. This could be a good experiment in OP collaborating with other philanthropists. 2. This could be a good way for OP to gain recognition by other important parties. 3. Maybe Dustin Moskovitz really wants this, and this is a way for other OP leaders to come to some agreement where they get more clearly-efficient funding for something else. 4. Maybe OP could learn other useful things by doing this that will lead to wins in other areas. 5. Maybe this is a cause area that does well if one uses some weighted average of different philanthropic views.
I don’t have a problem with OP doing this, and don’t mean to claim they’re not trying to maximize impact in some way.
At the same time, 1. I think that we (i.e. effective altruist enthusiasts reading public information) just don’t know how they justify this internally. I wouldn’t be surprised if we never find out. As others have flagged, it’s likely that revealing the true reasons might make their work less effective. 2. Again, there’s an important question of what EAs should take away from this. And I imagine we shouldn’t assume that “This is generally an effective cause area for other regular EA funding and talent, outside of OP.” It seems likely that a lot of the benefit here is fairly specific to the strategy and interests of people at OP. 3. There’s one related topic of “Is there any delineation in what projects EAs might consider EA/effective/interesting?” The more causes are justified on grounds that aren’t clear and transparent, the messier this gets. Lots of other philanthropists and leaders also do major things that aren’t directly effective, but that they think will ultimately be best for the world. 4. While I’m sure it’s the case they have some reasons they think this makes sense, I think it’s reasonable for onlookers to be skeptical that it’s actually worth it. To me, this venture rhymes a lot with the common mistake that many organizations make of over-extending themselves. I personally am probably more worried about the managerial attention they may spend on this than the $60m. 5. If one goes all the way on the idea that “private reasons make it likely that this is a good move, so we shouldn’t try to evaluate it from the outside,” one might assume that “All kinds of public critique of all organizations are invalid, because all organizations might have secretive information that makes their decisions unusually justified.” I think that public critique and evaluation is still important to attempt. I also think that OP is one of the most important groups to understand and critique, just because of it’s outsized impact around EA.
Other miscellaneous points: 1. Obviously, I find it interesting that this fairly-short press release has led to so much theorizing on our end. (perhaps me in-particular, as I’ve written a lot of the comments) 2. I think it’s kind of telling that OP hasn’t paid many people to directly engage with the EA Forum or other EA discussion. For example, I wouldn’t expect that it’s anyone’s job to respond to comments in these threads. This is almost ironic given that they pay for the CEA team, including the EA Forum team. But I think that they consider open communication about these topics, from OP team members, to be highly costly, and I correspondingly don’t expect them to provide much more insight on this or similar topics to our community. If I were to put myself in their shoes, I think they have a lot of worries about what other potential large donors, political actors, and other specific groups think about them. And they’re less concerned about the EA community. One thing this means is that PR statements like this won’t generally provide much information that the EA community in particular would care about.
[Edit: Note that @Alexander_Berger from OP provided a lengthy response, after I wrote this.]
My quick guess is that people at OP won’t want to (publicly) argue that this area is cost-effective with other top areas.
It’s their money, I won’t complain.
But at the same time, I want to avoid the trap of people on this forum assuming that their work is justified as being cost-effective with other top areas.
I think it’s easy for both:
1. OP doesn’t argue that its work represents Effective Altruism
2. Many people around Effective Altruism defer greatly to OP, and assume its actions are cost-effective in EA ways[1]
So to be clear, I think that typically, only one of those two points will be true. I assume it’s (1). And correspondingly, I imagine that many Effective Altruists should understand not to make many assumptions using public OP announcements like this about which topics are cost-effective.
There’s obviously one semi-interesting question, which is, “Okay, but then why should this announcement from OP be shown on the EA Forum, but not similar announcements from the Gates Foundation or similar?” This seems like a tricky question to answer. I think it’s good that this was posted here, but hope that readers don’t assume the wrong things about what it means. I assume that this was posted here roughly because OP is an org important for EA, not because OP is trying to argue that this is necessarily an EA cause.
By this, I mean, “Cost-effective in the sense that other EAs might themselves donate or contribute to the area.” Not in a sense like, “From OP’s specific perspective, this action accomplishes specific goals that makes it cost-effective for OP money specifically”
Thanks this is super helpful. I was trying to get my head around this announcement and that really helps.
Also to state the maybe obvious, you are allowed to ask whatever you want, and they are allowed to answer it or not! I for one appreciated the question in and of itself regardless of whether it gets answered
Clarifying this a bit more (from seeing the comments):
I assume that people close to this decision have reasons why they think this makes sense for OP, as a way to maximize OP’s contributions at some level.
This might well be for reasons like:
1. This could be a good experiment in OP collaborating with other philanthropists.
2. This could be a good way for OP to gain recognition by other important parties.
3. Maybe Dustin Moskovitz really wants this, and this is a way for other OP leaders to come to some agreement where they get more clearly-efficient funding for something else.
4. Maybe OP could learn other useful things by doing this that will lead to wins in other areas.
5. Maybe this is a cause area that does well if one uses some weighted average of different philanthropic views.
I don’t have a problem with OP doing this, and don’t mean to claim they’re not trying to maximize impact in some way.
At the same time,
1. I think that we (i.e. effective altruist enthusiasts reading public information) just don’t know how they justify this internally. I wouldn’t be surprised if we never find out. As others have flagged, it’s likely that revealing the true reasons might make their work less effective.
2. Again, there’s an important question of what EAs should take away from this. And I imagine we shouldn’t assume that “This is generally an effective cause area for other regular EA funding and talent, outside of OP.” It seems likely that a lot of the benefit here is fairly specific to the strategy and interests of people at OP.
3. There’s one related topic of “Is there any delineation in what projects EAs might consider EA/effective/interesting?” The more causes are justified on grounds that aren’t clear and transparent, the messier this gets. Lots of other philanthropists and leaders also do major things that aren’t directly effective, but that they think will ultimately be best for the world.
4. While I’m sure it’s the case they have some reasons they think this makes sense, I think it’s reasonable for onlookers to be skeptical that it’s actually worth it. To me, this venture rhymes a lot with the common mistake that many organizations make of over-extending themselves. I personally am probably more worried about the managerial attention they may spend on this than the $60m.
5. If one goes all the way on the idea that “private reasons make it likely that this is a good move, so we shouldn’t try to evaluate it from the outside,” one might assume that “All kinds of public critique of all organizations are invalid, because all organizations might have secretive information that makes their decisions unusually justified.” I think that public critique and evaluation is still important to attempt. I also think that OP is one of the most important groups to understand and critique, just because of it’s outsized impact around EA.
Other miscellaneous points:
1. Obviously, I find it interesting that this fairly-short press release has led to so much theorizing on our end. (perhaps me in-particular, as I’ve written a lot of the comments)
2. I think it’s kind of telling that OP hasn’t paid many people to directly engage with the EA Forum or other EA discussion. For example, I wouldn’t expect that it’s anyone’s job to respond to comments in these threads. This is almost ironic given that they pay for the CEA team, including the EA Forum team. But I think that they consider open communication about these topics, from OP team members, to be highly costly, and I correspondingly don’t expect them to provide much more insight on this or similar topics to our community. If I were to put myself in their shoes, I think they have a lot of worries about what other potential large donors, political actors, and other specific groups think about them. And they’re less concerned about the EA community. One thing this means is that PR statements like this won’t generally provide much information that the EA community in particular would care about.
I guess this comment is now obsolete/wrong given Alexanders reply? I still appreciate it! Maybe worth flagging that with an edit or something?
Sure, added with an edit.