benleo

• benleo 4 Aug 2023 10:28 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: In­tro­duc­ing the Effec­tive Altru­ism Aus­tralia En­vi­ron­ment Fund (EAAE)

  I think this is a great idea. I agree that it is much easier to shift giving within a cause area than between cause areas.

  I do wonder if there are ways to build in cross-causal giving using this platform. For example, I am curious whether the giving multiplier mechanism would be an effective way to achieve both 1) increased effectiveness within climate change donations and 2) substitute some donations to other cause areas. However, I would be hesitant to include this straight away, but if the EEA EF gets momentum it is something to consider.

  Also, I am curious what your strategy is in marketing the platform to non EAs who care about climate change. Have you had any success stories so far?

• benleo 10 Jul 2023 15:20 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 1

  on: Is Stir­ring up Anger Good for Ve­gan Outreach?

  Thanks for posting this, I have a few questions.

  Do you have any other metrics besides visiting the website? Is there a link such as “learn more about veganism” that you can track?

  Besides anecdotes, do you have evidence/​data that the “dog meat” intervention works better than other interventions?

  I do worry that while shock value may work for some people, it could push other people further away from veganism (especially if they felt deceived). But, I am unsure how serious (or important) this concern is.

• benleo 7 Jul 2023 14:47 UTC

  37 points

  9 ∶ 1

  on: The Hap­pier Lives In­sti­tute is fund­ing con­strained and needs you!

  I’m also impressed by this post. HLI’s work has definitely shifted my priors on wellbeing interventions.

  We strive to be maximally philosophically and empirically rigorous. For instance, our meta-analysis of cash transfers has since been published in a top academic journal. We’ve shown how important philosophy is for comparing life-improving against life-extending interventions. We’ve won prizes: our report re-analysing deworming led GiveWell to start their “Change Our Mind” competition. Open Philanthropy awarded us money in their Cause Exporation Prize.

  It’s also great to see the organisation taking philosophical/​empirical concerns seriously. I still have some concerns/​questions about the efficacy of these interventions (compared to Givewell charities), but I am confident in HLI continuing to shed light on these concerns in the future.

  For example, projects like the one below I think are really important.

  • Develop the WELLBY methodology, exploring, for instance, the social desirability bias in SWB scales

  and

  building the field of academic researchers taking a wellbeing approach, including collecting data on interventions.

• benleo 24 May 2023 21:23 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: AGI Catas­tro­phe and Takeover: Some Refer­ence Class-Based Priors

  The reference classes I look at generate a prior for AGI control over current human resources anywhere between 5% and 60% (mean of ~16-26%).

  Thanks for this Zach. I found it quite thought provoking, especially the quoted sentence.

  Based on your model, AGI controlling human resources is much more likely to occur than extinction. Given that, what events do you think we should be worried about with losing autonomy over resources (and potentially institutions) and are you more concerned about that after this work?

• benleo 22 May 2023 10:19 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Maybe you should quit your job

  Here is a paper by Steve Levitt that argues that for people who are having difficulty making a decision (quitting your job, ending a relationship etc), those that do make a change are happier 6 months later.

  Here is an open access earlier version of the working paper.

• benleo 27 Mar 2023 12:39 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jack Lewars’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  Participants donated their own money. They received a bonus of £1 and could choose how much of it they wanted to keep or donate.

• benleo 16 Mar 2023 12:18 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Offer an op­tion to Mus­lim donors; grow effec­tive giving

  This is a fantastic idea. Congratulations to all involved.

  Out of curiosity, does GD have any data on whether other religions donate a portion of their tithe/​tzdaka/​etc to GD?

• benleo 27 Feb 2023 10:30 UTC

  10 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: Let’s Fund: Bet­ter Science im­pact eval­u­a­tion. Registered Re­ports now available in Nature

  This is fantastic news!

  As an experimental economist, I hope this has spillovers to our field (as well as others).

  At the feedback level (referee reports, presentations etc), I believe there is significantly more value to be gained when discussing the experimental design itself before any data is collected.

  Congrats to Hauke, Chris, and all others involved.

• benleo 23 Feb 2023 14:24 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Catherine F’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  Thanks Catherine. We just used the platform Prolific for subject recruitment.

• benleo 22 Feb 2023 20:01 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  Thanks David, that would be great! I’ll check to see if there is a way to run it on STATA, but if not I can just run it on R.

• benleo 22 Feb 2023 12:12 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  In experiment 1, condition on them donating they actually donated significantly less in the Moral Demandingness condition (but this didn’t replicate in E2).

  Can you DM me about the model, I am happy to run that analysis. We ran mean equivalence tests to provide evidence of the bounds of the null result, but I believe what you are suggesting is quite different.

• benleo 22 Feb 2023 12:12 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  In experiment 1, condition on them donating they actually donated significantly less in the Moral Demandingness condition (but this didn’t replicate in E2).

  Can you DM me about the model, I am happy to run that analysis. We ran mean equivalence tests to provide evidence of the bounds of the null result, but I believe what you are suggesting is quite different.

• benleo 22 Feb 2023 12:09 UTC

  5 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Scott Smith 🔸’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  Thanks Scott, that’s a really good point.

  One of the variables we thought about manipulating was “who is the demand coming from”? The use of language here “I”, “We” and other expressions could easily make a difference (social norms are usually presented in terms of “X% of people believe”).

  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the budget to test whether how much of a difference (if any) this made. It would definitely be worth following up on if we were able to get the funding.

• benleo 22 Feb 2023 12:05 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ariel Simnegar 🔸’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  Thanks Ariel. That’s a great question.

  We checked a number of different correlations cross both studies, including altruistic type, how utilitarian they are, guilt, how manipulated they felt, agreeableness, and a number of demographic characteristics including religion.

  We didn’t find anything in our regression analysis that stood out. However, we reported everything in the appendix, which can be accessed in the paper. Alternatively, I can send it to you.

  I guess another question is who is the obligation coming from? In our experiments it was either from us or GWWC. With regards to religion, if it is in scripture or communicated by a religious figure (such as a rabbi or a priest), maybe it holds more weight? Also, the norms regarding giving are different to secular norms.

  We didn’t measure how convinced they were by the argument (in hindsight we probably should have), but we did ask how obligated they felt and obligations ratings were significantly higher in the Moral Argument treatment than the control. That correlation may be explained by finding the argument more convincing, but we don’t have any concrete evidence (from this study) to strongly update our beliefs.

• benleo 21 Feb 2023 14:17 UTC

  13 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  In that case, a better title would probably be something like “Tell people why they should donate, not that they morally obligated to.”*

  I had a strong prior that telling people they were morally obligated to donate would not have a positive effect and if anything backfire. So I have actually updated a bit in the other direction regarding the backfire effect.

  However, given we have evidence that moral demandingness didn’t produce any positive outcomes, I would currently tell people not to use them and instead stick to moral arguments (which may even be underused given how effective they are).

  In saying that, further research is needed, as there isn’t much of a literature at the moment.

  *Can I change the title?

• benleo 21 Feb 2023 13:39 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  That’s very fair! I’m not familiar with the norms for EA Forum title posts. What do you think a better title would be?

Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

• benleo 30 May 2022 3:57 UTC

  7 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: In­tro­duc­ing EAe­con: Com­mu­nity-Build­ing Project

  Now I really want to call it EaE(con)^2

• benleo 26 Apr 2022 11:14 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Solv­ing the repli­ca­tion crisis (FTX pro­posal)

  Thanks for sharing your proposal Michael. The institute looks great. Finding ways to incentivise replication is something I consider to be really important.

  A couple of questions. I am curious what probability you would place on the Institute significantly increasing acceptances of replications in top journals? More abstractly, I wonder if a dedicated instituted could help change social norms in academia around replication. Do you have any thoughts about this?

  Lastly, did you receive any feedback from FTX?

• benleo 31 Jan 2022 23:26 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Lucius Caviola’s comment on: Giv­ing Mul­ti­plier af­ter 14 months

  Interesting. I wonder if the mechanism is similar to making a donation when there is matching. As in, people think they are giving more money to the cause because their donation is ‘doubled’. By providing matching funds they might believe they are going to bring more money in. Alternatively, if they see GM as a public good itself (and like this idea), they have some preference to fund it for that sake.
  
  Would love to know more about this!