I found this such a beautiful piece of writing! :’)
@Anna Weldon I’ve said this before, but I am just SO excited for the managerial expertise and excellence you are bringing to CEA. We (CEA and EA) are so lucky <3
The loss of active donors seems like a big loss to me. I’m really curious what’s happening there.
1. Some donors probably just changed targets, for example, to Manifund or other new funds
2. I’m sure some got cynical or disenchanted by the movement or something
3. Maybe some got hurt financially, from FTX / a crypto bust?
The idea of haggling doesn’t sit well with me or my idea of what a good society should be like. It feels competitive, uncooperative, and zero-sum, when I want to live in a society where people are honest and cooperative.
Counterpoint: some people are more price-sensitive than typical consumers, and really can’t afford things. If we prohibit or stigmatize haggling, society is leaving value on the table, in terms of sale profits and consumer surplus generated by transactions involving these more financially constrained consumers. (When the seller is a monopolist, they even introduce opportunities like this through the more sinister-sounding practice of price discrimination.)
I wrote a Twitter thread that summarizes this piece and has a lot of extra images (I probably went overboard, tbh.)
I kinda wish I’d included the following image in the piece itself, so I figured I’d share it here:
I think it’s similar to the FPP dynamics you’re referencing. Essentially, it’s most advantageous to vote for candidates with broader appeal in the hopes they actually make it to the general election.
The author of this post must be over the moon right now
Thanks for writing this! I have a more philosophical counter that I’d love for you to respond to.
The idea of haggling doesn’t sit well with me or my idea of what a good society should be like. It feels competitive, uncooperative, and zero-sum, when I want to live in a society where people are honest and cooperative. Specifically, it seems to encourage deceptive pricing and reward people who are willing to be manipulative and stretch the truth.
In other words, haggling gives me bad vibes.
When you think about haggling/negotiating in altruistic context, do you have a framing that is more positive than this? Put another way: Other than saving money for the good guys (us) and costing money for the bad guys (some business), why is all of this “good”?
I won’t pretend to have more experience with formulating counterfactuals than others here—but I’m interested to learn more! However, given the scale of these cuts and the central role of U.S. funding, I think a significant increase in malaria deaths is incredibly likely. The leaked USAID memo stated an “additional 12.5-17.9 million [malaria]cases and 71,000-166,000 deaths (39.1% increase) annually” could be possible if programs are permanently halted.
In 2020, there were around 80,000 additional deaths from malaria, largely due to disruptions in malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. (The age-standardized death rate from malaria was 9.3 deaths per 100,000 in 2019 and increased by around 12% to 10.3 deaths per 100,000, equivalent to around 80,000 additional deaths. Estimates from the World Health Organization also show a similar increase.)
Even in 2020, the financial shortfalls were not as extreme as what we’re seeing today. I’d be curious to hear what people think is a more reasonable mortality estimate, based on that and the factors below.
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U.S. funding accounts for the vast majority of global malaria financing, and African governments already operate under tight fiscal constraints. These cuts put them in an impossible position. The latest African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) progress report acknowledged this risk:
“A small number of external donors continue to provide the majority of financing for malaria interventions. Member states highlight the risks this presents to long-term sustainability and a need to diversify sources of funding.”
ALMA also commissioned modeling showing that, even with flatlined funding, Africa could see up to 280,700 additional malaria deaths between 2027 and 2029 due to upsurges and outbreaks. Instead of flatlining, funding is cratering.
The US bilaterally provides nearly 25% of global malaria financing through the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), including $795 million in FY24
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria is the largest overall donor, contributing more than 60% of global donor financing.
However, the U.S. is the single largest donor to the Global Fund, but its contributions are capped at 33% of the total. If other donors (like the UK and Netherlands) go through with announcements to reduce ODA, including to orgs like the Global Fund, the U.S. will be forced to cut further. This already happened last year when the U.S. had to reduce its Global Fund contribution by $350 million.
Discussions within the Global Fund board about shifting the disease split for funding between AIDS, TB, and malaria could further reduce available malaria funding
Beyond financing, USAID played an immense operational role that no other donor can immediately replace. It was deeply embedded in ministries of health, funding frontline health workers, lab technicians, doctors, nurses, and supply chain logistics. Without these systems, malaria cases and fatality rates will rise.
In Kenya, at least 1,500 health workers have lost their jobs, and the CEO of the National Syndemic Disease Control Council estimates that at least 41,000 health workers are employed with USAID funding.
In Uganda, at least 3,000 doctors, nurses, and lab technicians have been furloughed or laid off and 29,000 could face job losses. The Health Ministry encouraged staff who were willing to work without pay to continue to do so “in the spirit of patriotism as volunteers…”
The idea that “many of the poorest people will buy medications if they have to” assumes that antimalarials will even be available. In the short term, many may not be.
A significant portion of malaria commodities—bed nets, diagnostic kits, and antimalarial drugs—are imported. Supply chains are already disrupted. Some frontline organizations report difficulties procuring antiretroviral drugs, even if they have independent funding, due to the USAID shutdown. Malaria commodities could face similar issues.
The U.S. withdrawal has been so abrupt that new procurement contracts or programs can’t be put in place quickly enough, causing immediate shortages and delays.
Materials already in the pipeline/under production that include the mandatory branding of “USAID—From the American People” may not be able to be legally distributed.
Suppliers don’t know what future demand will look like or whether they’ll be paid, leading to reduced production and inevitable supply bottlenecks and price spikes.
DAA Enrich wasn’t able to finalize the memo before being put on Administrative leave, so I think it’s fair to look at it with some additional grains of salt. But I am still more convinced than not that this abrupt termination of US aid programs—which is unprecedented in scale and breadth—could lead to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of excess malaria deaths in one year.
That’s not to say that will become the new baseline level of mortality for every year moving forward…but these programs and procurement contracts are formulated on 3-5 year timelines normally, so this initial shock will be very destabilizing and deadly.
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As a public health advocate I don’t know as much about counterfactuals as many in this forum. I’d be curious to hear what you (and others) think is a more reasonable mortality estimate, given these factors, so I can continue to learn and refine my opinions on this.
Someone pointed me to this blog post by the EA Infrastructure Fund, which I missed.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PN4FEGt3fjHv8diGo/eaif-isn-t-currently-funding-constrained
> EAIF currently has $3.3M in available funds. So far over 2024 EAIF has made grants worth $1.1M, and I expect this to be around $1.4M by the end of 2024.So it seems like EAIF at least is in a decent position.
I’m not sure how this coincides with the above numbers though. Just eyeballing it—maybe, while donations in have been low, donations out have been lower, so there’s been a surplus of funding.
Yep it’ll all be in the comments, so if you aren’t around you can read it later (and I’m sure a bunch of the conversations will continue, just potentially without the guests)
this was a good flag btw—I’ve changed the first sentence to be clearer!
Nice!
Do people know what’s going on with the EA Funds financial position? Some of the graphs look a bit worrying. But I’ve also noticed some (what seem like) inconsistencies, so I suspect that some key data is missing or something.
https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/stats/donations
The following graph seems incorrect. It seems like it just wasn’t updated since Dec 2023. And I’m curious if there really was the ~$2M jump in the LTFF that month.
These are two different games. The joint game would be
Value of {}: 0 Value of {1}: 60 Value of {2}: 0 Value of {1,2}: 100`
and in that game player one is indeed better off in shapley value terms if he joins together with 2.
I’ll let you reflect on how/whether adding an additional option can’t decrease someone’s shapley value, but I’ll get back to my job :)
The meta level answer is that there are [many potential causes](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SCqRu6shoa8ySvRAa/big-list-of-cause-candidates), and although suggestions are welcome, the “burden” on a new cause is high.
This is a cool idea! Will this be recorded for people who can’t attend live?
Edit: nevermind, I think I’m confused; I take it this is all happening in writing/in the comments.
One project aimed at mid-career people: https://www.successif.org/our-work
Clarification: by not changing biases, I meant ‘don’t try to change intuitive society bias such as valuing cuteness’ for effectiveness, but rather work with them to our advantage. E.g. if I was raising money for animals, maybe don’t pick a cockroach. You could- to get the shock factor and some uniqueness/bust stereotypes- but you are climbing an uphill battle when bigger wars are needed.
Thanks I absolutely love this, and would be willing to do this same thing with the same ratio with half the size of the donation (2500) - I just don’t have much money lol. I would also be willing to use a 5 billion global population threshold, although I doubt that makes much difference—if we go down to 5 billion we probably go down to 1...
I don’t really consider it a wager as such, more a donation trade or something (I’m sure others can think of a better name)
If I can help make AI Doom .000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent less likely while getting more return than market growth to the charity of my choice, what’s there not to love?
Quick question what do you mean by “inflation adjusted” on the 7500 exactly?
Nice one
How is this?
Is Big Pharma hiding the cure for cancer? No but someone else is*
The rise of antiscience and why Big Wellness is hiding cures
TLDR: There is unlikely to be a promising cure or new management that would be completely buried (even if delayed)by for profit pharmaceuticals, due to a mix of diverse stakeholders, non profits in the space, and ‘first to beat’ reasoning. Pharmaceuticals are villified more than alternative medicines despite having documents side effects and processes rather than the potential for harm from unlicensed herbal, supplemental and other forms, plus branches such as chiropractics, naturopathy, homeopathy and more are being conflated as ‘leaning into lifestyle changes’ rather than for their pseudoscientific origins, blurring the lines between science as a process and science as an entity to attack. Historically, scientists and clinicians have done a bad job (through many factors) of representing these diverse cultures and voices, but alternative medicine should not have a seat at the table as it does more harm than good.
PREMISE: Big Pharma wants you sick
3. The pharmaceutical landscape
5. Risk and reward in pharmaceuticals
6. HPV vaccines and Big Pharma’s interest in a cure
7. Nocebo effects, clinical trial optics and fall guys
8. Big Pharma can’t veto a cure
10. Alternative medicine origins
I expect there are some cohort effects (people in more recent generations have a higher probability of being involved). In particular, many people get into EA via university groups (although it may not be the place they ‘first heard’ about it; see David Moss’ reply), and these groups have only been around a decade or so.
But I also imagine some pure age effects (as people age they leave/are less likely to enter), perhaps driven by things like
1. Homophily/identity/herding: If you only see people unlike you (agewise) you’re less likely to think you belong. This leads to inertia.
2. Cost and family priorities: EA ~expects/encourages people to donate a substantial share of their income, or do directly impactful work (which may be less remunerative or secure). For older people the donation share/lost income could seem more substantial, esp. if they are used to their lifecycle. Or probably more significantly, for parents it may be harder to do what seems like ‘taking money away from their children.
3. Status and prestige issues: EA leaders tend to be young, EA doesn’t value seniority or credentials as much (which is probably a good thing). But older people might feel ~disrespected by this. Or second order: they might think that their age-peers and colleagues will think less of them if they are following or ‘taking direction’ from ~‘a bunch of kids’. E.g., as a jr. professor at an academic conference if you are seated at the grad students’ table you might feel insecure.
4. Issues and expertise that are relevant tends to be ‘new stuff’ that older people won’t have learned or won’t be familiar with. AI Safety is the biggest one, but there are other examples like Bayesian approaches.
(Identity politics bit: I’m 48 years old, and some of this is based on my own impressions, but not all of it.)