UK Civil Servant and prolific tweeter (@EAheadlines)
Kirsten
Karma: 11,597
I also really disliked this section. “Let’s say only one other person in your network hears that you took the pledge and is inspired to do the same.”
I don’t care if other people take the pledge! I only care if other people give, and give effectively.
If they’d be influenced to “take the pledge” because me taking the pledge, why wouldn’t they be influenced donate a proportion of their income effectively by seeing me donate?
You can make the argument for why the pledge is more effective than just donating, but you haven’t done it here.
That would make sense! I think the civil servant in charge might also have a certain level of discretion with regards to how they represent the results—I did in my case.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that more responses mean nothing, just that bringing up a sensible consideration is more likely to affect outcomes than copying and pasting a response (which may have between no weight and a little weight with the policymakers)
There weren’t many, so I don’t know unfortunately. In this consultation you’d have a better chance because it’s about a public-facing issue
Yes that’s true, if they use statistics like this, similar or duplocated responses might count
I can confirm that copying and pasting doesn’t move the needle, at least in consultations I’ve been involved with—they will put weight on people actually engaging with the ideas (Similarly feel free to skip or provide very short answers to questions you don’t care much about and focus on the ones who care most about)
I can imagine a first step would be it being offered as an option to mothers. Many late term abortions happen with wanted babies after a serious diagnosis.
However this post doesn’t seem to talk about the main drug used for late abortions in the UK? So I’m sceptical. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng140/chapter/Recommendations#medical-abortion-after-236-weeks
This is entirely consistent with two other applications I know of from 2023, both of which were funded but experienced severe delays and poor/absent/straightforwardly unprofessional communication
If I’m truly stuck on a task—no matter how hard I try, my focus always slides off of it—I set a timer for 10 minutes. During those 10 minutes I give myself free licence to either work on that one task, or just sit in my chair. I often spend a few minutes noticing a variety of feelings. Eventually I often hit a thought like, “Well, I wish I could make progress on this, but I don’t really even know what to do. How would I even start?” or “I want to do so much more but I’m just exhausted; I’m at my limit” or “I’m not sure this task is even that useful.” That is generally the thought that gets me unstuck.
“When life gives you Lemiens”?
Okay, sorry for misreading, the poll makes much more sense now! I’ve edited the first part of my comment at it doesn’t make much sense
Sorry, did this always say externally? Maybe I just need better reading comprehension!
As a government employee, I have a duty to speak candidly internally and not to share restricted information externally. I suspect most organisations have weaker but similar norms about the difference between how you speak to colleagues and externals.
My first question would be: is the particular suicide hotline you’re looking at currently turning people away/making people wait a long time because of lack of volunteers? If so, every extra person could be very valuable.
If not, you might be replacing a less skilled volunteer. The question then becomes, how often would you save a life when they wouldn’t? That’s a hard question and it’s not easy for me to know the answer, but it’s probably not every night. Lots of people call a hotline with their mind already made up one way or the other.
What’s more, in areas that use primarily observational data there’s a really big gap between fields in how often papers even try to use causal inference methods and how hard they work to show that their identifying assumptions hold.
Just highlighting this paragraph because I think it’s extremely important. As a policymaker, the vast majority of research I see from think tanks etc include poorly justified assumptions. It’s become one of the first things I look for now, in part because it’s an easy prompt for me to spot a wide range of issues.
Thanks for sharing your story, and for your family’s sacrifice for the sake of those who need it most
I disliked the opening parable too
-13 karma from 5 votes for a comment that doesn’t seem to break any Forum norms? Odd
You’re right about the effort involved, but when these are real people who you are discussing deanonymizing in order to try to stop them from getting jobs, you should make the effort.
I raised some awkward questions, without offering any answers, conclusions, or recommendations.
I don’t feel like you raised discussion with no preference for what the community decided. When I gave my answer, which many people seem to agree with, your response was to question whether that’s REALLY what the EA community wants. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to suggest that you’re just asking a question when you clearly have a preference for how people answer!
A bit of feedback, since this is a sales piece and I do actually like Giving What We Can:
Saying that there’s no good reason not to pledge if you’re already donating 10% sits really poorly with me. It feels insulting that you’ve decided that my reasons aren’t good enough and must be only based misunderstandings.
Even if my only reason not to pledge is that I’ve thought about it carefully and decided I don’t want to, shouldn’t that be enough?