I found effective altruism in July 2021. Read everything I could, learned as much as I could. Pediatrician working in low resource settings, now completed Masters in global health policy, because I wanted to help more people.
LiaH
Karma: 138
Their assessment seems to be three small policy spheres, rather than global health policy, which is larger in scale.
Global health policy is neglected EA-aligned work. This post is short because the attachment is long; if you read the whole article, and disagree that global health policy work is useful, I am interested to hear your reasons.
The political origins of health inequity: prospects for change
Is growth the best approach to maximizing the good we can do? What is the effect on the environment? How much consumption is too much?
What if low income countries were granted debt relief, so their policies were not driven by creditors? What about a global minimum wage? Or tax justice, like a universal minimum corporate tax? And what to do about climate reparations?
None of these ideas are my own, they are from this podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-58-the-neoliberal-optimism-industry
I would also wonder about the EA response to “poor countries don’t need charity, they need justice”
“Value change” type work—gradually shifting civilizational values to those more in line with human flourishing—might fall into this category too.
This is the first I have seen reference to norm changing in EA. Is there other writing on this idea?
This is great! Also, I am appreciative to learn you have been working hard on diversity :)
Interesting! He is an outlier. I would be very interested to learn his story, if possible.
You are right, I missed the “next” button. I did wonder why there was so little discussion on the forum about fair and equal society. I believe you made the comment I found which questions its value.
you are right, it is an excellent summary I had not found.
Where is the Social Justice in EA?
This is excellent. I have a question I hope you include in your ongoing research:
Are these psychological traits fixed, or can they change?
Background: It is possible my case is unique, but I have changed toward these effectiveness-focused, and expansive altruism traits; having discovered EA in June 2021 I have changed my career path, returned to school to pursue an EA career, taken the GWWC pledge, etc. As recently as 7 years ago, I would not have identified with these traits. Seeing the photo of the dead Syrian refugee boy , Alan Kurdi, (trigger warning for the photo) on the Turkish beach was the turning point for me. Prior, my moral circle was small, and I had not considered the relevance of effectiveness in charitable giving.
I wonder if other EAs always identified with these traits, had a moment of “enlightenment”, or gradually changed.
Searching for proto-EA communities makes sense for increasing EA, but would it also be helpful to discover if current EAs have changed or evolved into these traits, and what were the factors?
Agreed, it seems to be escalating fast. Although it is debatable whether the attack on Ukraine was expected, what transpires is becoming more obvious, with Putin’s thinly veiled threats of retaliation if NATO defends Ukraine. I have seen excellent arguments against No Fly Zone because enforcement of said NFZ necessitates actually shooting down planes.
Which makes me wonder about the feasibility of a peaceful solution. Sam Bankman-Fried transferred money to the Ukrainian people, and Elon Musk established Starlink over Ukraine. How effective would this modern guerilla-style be in supporting Ukrainian efforts? It could provide support for Ukraine without the open state declaration of support which would incite escalation.
yes, I agree EAs have different opinions; I was seeking to understand the one I do not follow. Maybe asking for the “general” EA view was the wrong phrasing.
Your reply explains well why an individual or small organization might want to protect patent rights to capitalize, or at the very least preserve investment, to allow for future R&D.
Where I cannot understand the purpose of securing IP rights, is in situations where there is philanthropic money to fund the R&D. If philanthropists fund the original R&D, then “someone else can come along and copy whatever it is you spent time and money developing—and sell it at a cheaper cost since they didn’t have to pay for most of the research and development”, which would ultimately provide the product to more people at a lesser cost.
The other situation I don’t understand the protection of IP rights is for the transnational pharmaceutical corporations in pandemics. Vaccines seem to be the most equitable and effective means (vs closures, restricted travel and trade, or the alternative, unmitigated spread of disease) to save lives and shorten pandemics. While the rapid R&D of mRNA vaccines must have been expensive, the major vaccine producers received public and donated funds for their development, via PPP. Pfizer reported revenue for 2021 of double the prior year, primarily due to vaccine revenue. Their R&D was both funded up front, and presumably recouped. At what level of profit should lives take precedence?
What is the general EA view on intellectual property rights? Based on the downvotes I get for advocating TRIPs waivers for vaccines, there are at least some on the forum who value IP rights. Why? What is the rationale?
Be that as it may, removal of IP barriers still makes pharmaceuticals more accessible; IP barriers were one of the main reasons for lack of access to HIV/AIDS medications, before they were challenged. I do not see a good reason for EA projects to withhold patent rights, if the purpose of creating the vaccine is doing the most good for the most people. A donation of patent rights is a donation of time and money.
This an inspiring project, and one I have wondered why EA has not addressed before now. I assume the IP rights will be waived to increase the ability to scale? Giving up IP rights is so much more valuable than giving hours and money, and seems to me to be EA aligned.
A parallel project to consider would be evaluation of trust in vaccines in LMICs. I have seen full lots of vaccines wasted in LICs because people do not trust the government, big pharma, health care workers, etc. It may be exclusive to the conflict zones in which I have worked, but vaccine refusal was at least as big a problem as lack of vaccines. Vaccines only work if they are used.
You have an interesting idea; if socialist theories have a lot in common with EA thinkers, but have consistently failed, can EA create/devise a governance system that works better? Maybe this is a rhetorical question, but I would sure love to hear from EAs who know history and politics better than I do. From my perspective also as a non-historian, the failures seem to have been in the leadership.
It does. I am impressed.
I only have issue with the semantics of your first sentence. I would suggest no large-scale economic system has ever existed that was successful at maximizing human wellbeing; I think socialist ideals intend to maximize human welfare, but have always failed in implementation. I might say the same for the great religions, though, excellent analogy.
Thank you for taking the time.
Are economists the right people to ask?
True, my mistake. Herd immunity is the public good. I would still suggest vaccines are the cheapest, safest, fastest, most equitable route to herd immunity.
Is growth the best approach to maximizing the good we can do? What is the effect on the environment? How much consumption is too much? Where does this leave future generations?
What if instead low income countries were granted debt relief, so their policies were not driven by creditors? What about a global minimum wage? Or tax justice, like a universal minimum corporate tax? And what to do about climate reparations?
These ideas are not my own, they are from this podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-58-the-neoliberal-optimism-industry
Much of the challenge of measuring growth is it occurs as a country-level analysis, where the growth of global north rich countries in the last two centuries was at least partially gained on the resources and human capital of the global south, and continues, so similar growth cannot be replicated.
Therefore I would wonder if global governance policy is an important and neglected area to be considered? (I will allow that tractability may be the roadblock).
I would therefore also wonder about the EA response to “poor countries don’t need charity, they need justice”?