Thinking about ways to improve cause prioritization research at low-cost the idea of using giving games came up. It would be basically crowdsourcing the kind of research Give Well does. Many (potentially) effective causes already have strong supporters who would be able to provide information and research for free. There might be an effective online model of capitalizing on such supporters (and the general EA public). An online causes contest is an idea. There should be rules to ensure the discussion is evidence-based and high quality. Rules can be played with, there could be teams and the way of engaging the public opens up many opportunities. This could be used to raise awareness about effective altruism, but more importantly, the online system should be designed to advance our knowledge about the value of causes. The big dream is to build a community curated “open evidence” rank* of causes. A simple way of starting is just maintaining an online list of potentially high impact causes with associated expected values, then allowing people to submit evidence (pro or against) each cause. There could be a point system in which evidence influences causes value (there could be a panel of judges or a voting system to each new argument/evidence). Are there similar initiatives in the community? Have you discussed this before? What is the current state of giving games?
.* having only a one-dimensional quantitative rank might not be the best option.
Thinking about ways to improve cause prioritization research at low-cost the idea of using giving games came up. It would be basically crowdsourcing the kind of research Give Well does. Many (potentially) effective causes already have strong supporters who would be able to provide information and research for free. There might be an effective online model of capitalizing on such supporters (and the general EA public). An online causes contest is an idea. There should be rules to ensure the discussion is evidence-based and high quality. Rules can be played with, there could be teams and the way of engaging the public opens up many opportunities. This could be used to raise awareness about effective altruism, but more importantly, the online system should be designed to advance our knowledge about the value of causes. The big dream is to build a community curated “open evidence” rank* of causes. A simple way of starting is just maintaining an online list of potentially high impact causes with associated expected values, then allowing people to submit evidence (pro or against) each cause. There could be a point system in which evidence influences causes value (there could be a panel of judges or a voting system to each new argument/evidence). Are there similar initiatives in the community? Have you discussed this before? What is the current state of giving games?
.* having only a one-dimensional quantitative rank might not be the best option.
(this occurred me when reading this post http://blog.givewell.org/2014/10/16/expert-philanthropy-vs-broad-philanthropy/#comments)