Thanks, Luke. When I have some more time I might brainstorm next steps on this including how to put together a team. If so, I’ll reach out!
Danny Lipsitz
Karma: 110
Thanks for the feedback. The way I envision it, it wouldn’t require any profound change of anyone’s attitude. There are so many businesses doing round-up for charity around the world. If someone were to sleuth around and put in the time, surely they could identify the low-hanging-fruit of businesses that are happy to change their round-up charity at the credit card reader without much convincing.
Of all the people in the position to change the setting on the credit card reader at their small business (if that’s even how it works) some of them may be receptive to this for reasons like:
-they’re receptive to some very basic compelling stats about a specific EA charity without having to subscribe to EA
-they don’t really care what the charity is anyway and will change it if someone asks
Of course, I like your vision of the potential scope of this. Perhaps if there’s any success with some small businesses here and there that don’t take much convincing, down the line there could be more involved campaigns to get much larger supermarket chains, fast food joints, and payment processing companies to feature selected effective charities that are palatable to the general public.
I wonder how much thought even large companies put into this, though. In the non-profit world, are there huge, competitive campaigns to secure a spot on the round-up button at Walmart? Or is it more like, some random executive arbitrarily decides to feature St. Jude as the beneficiary?
[Question] Rounding Up Effectively at Supermarkets
Thanks for posting. I’ve been trying to find the best place to donate in blindness prevention for a few giving cycles now.
Intuitively, it feels like interventions without the direct goal of mortality prevention, like preventing blindness, could achieve nearly as much good over the years as preventing deaths.
Thanks for writing, and great meeting you back in August.
For me the ironic thing about critiquing current practices of EA is that it is, in itself, an act of EA.
The same can’t necessarily be said for critiquing the underlying premise of EA.
Hey Aaron—really want to sit down and read this thoroughly when I have a moment. Someone sent me the link to your post, otherwise, I haven’t been on EA Forum for a minute.
That said, I did a talk on just this topic back at the EA Global “Unconference” over the summer. Would love to maybe be in touch about this idea...the link to my talk is here:
Ah, okay. So tractability is built into the term “most important”?
I thought they were two separate concepts: https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/importance-neglectedness-tractability/
I agree that all that really matters is how effective a particular intervention will be in reducing suffering for the amount of money you plan to donate. Other metrics (especially neglectedness) are just heuristics.
Kind of unrelated, but I’ve wondered about these first two considerations that people use to pick a charity, as listed above:
1) which cause is most important
2) which interventions in the cause are most effectiveCouldn’t there be a cause that is extremely important but just that don’t have any good interventions? Maybe there is a “most effective” intervention for this cause, but it’s still not that good, and donating to that intervention doesn’t really result in much.
I hate to admit it, but I think there does exist a utilitarian trade-off between marketability and accuracy. Although I’m thrilled that the EA movement prides itself on being as factually accurate as possible and I believe the core EA movement absolutely needs to stick with that, there is a case to be made that an exaggerated truth may be an important teaching tool in helping non-EAs understand why EAs do what they do.
It seems likely that Peter Singer’s example has had a net-positive impact, despite the inaccuracies. Even I was originally drawn to EA by this example, among a few of his others. I’ve since been donating at least 10% and been active in EA projects. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
We just have to be careful that the integrity of the EA movement isn’t compromised due to inaccurate examples like this. But I think anyone who goes far enough with EA to learn that this example is inaccurate, or even cares to do so, will most likely already have converted into an EA mindset, which is Mr. Singer’s end-goal.
My video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0AiIMeyxWk
All the Unconference videos are in a playlist, above!
Thanks, Michael! I would definitely love to have the talk linked from EA Hub. Cafelow, is that a possibility?
I have definitely checked out SHIC and skimmed through their materials. My initial concept for teaching in schools has a notable distinction from them. Before considering the idea of internal vs. external movement building, my concept was to do a single lesson, spark a lightbulb moment with a student or two who might be EA-inclined, give them a copy of “Doing Good Better,” and then move on. Coming back for more lessons with the same class seemed like it would yield diminishing returns. I didn’t think I would convince any additional students to become EA the second go-around.
However, reading back through Catherine’s conclusions in the High School EA Outreach post, it never occurred to me that sustained exposure might be what encourages some would-be EAs who agree with my first lesson to actually adapt EA behavior.
Since the Unconference and my recent interest in the idea of external movement building, I do think I’d like to rethink a set of materials specifically aimed at people who are not EA-inclined, for classroom use, for general use by EAs when talking to non-EAs, and as guidelines for broader public outreach.
From the conclusions of the contributors to the High School EA Outreach post (and from my own findings) it might be hard to get non-EA young people to put in additional resources into doing good. But collectively, young people will still give tons of money to walk-a-thons and fundraisers they see on Facebook. If we can’t increase the quantity of giving, is it possible to improve the quality? It seems like Charity Navigator has been able to become a (nearly) household name and perpetuate certain ideas about giving. This could be a proof of concept that a large subset of the public is open to new ideas about how to do good, and that non-EA charitable funds could theoretically be redirected to more effective charities.
Thanks Thomas. Just sent you a message.
Thank you. This is definitely at least part of what I was remembering! Was there a separate one then involving arguments for EA remaining apolitcal? (I know there’s may be small mentions of that on several episodes.)
[Question] 80,000 Episode Re: Size of Community
Sounds good! Yes, please stay in touch!
Glad you are doing this, thank you! It’s peripherally related but I’m curious if you have any insight on the effectiveness of giving money to political campaigns, especially for races that might be on the fence between two very different candidates.
Sounds interesting! I’m curious what circling actually entails. Could you describe what happens in one of the sessions?
I think this is a great idea. There’s definitely an ideal of what it means to be EA that is set by the demands of moral philosophy and by EA superstars. However, there is a limit to what most people (even the superstars) can reasonably accomplish. It could be helpful to highlight the struggle between the ideal and the practical, and what each guest is doing to try to improve.
I have professional experience in audio engineering so let me know if you have any questions on that front, and would love to be a guest at some point (you can see my project on this page.)
Disclaimer: I am mostly skimming as there’s a lot to read and haven’t gotten through it all. But I do believe part of the idea with FarmKind is that the donors are already sympathetic to animal charities, and agree with the premise of effective animal charities, but also just want to get some warm fuzzies in as well. As opposed to most of their money going to something they do not agree with or have any care for.