A good push. This kind of analysis will look different by the destination country’s level of social spending—Denmark has particularly high social spending.
And still seems quite likely that for skill-trade jobs with positive externalities (construction, healthcare) where the destination government is trying to attract foreign workers that the net societal impact is positive even in cases where the fiscal impact is negative.
But the picture is not as clear as I assumed—thank you.
A good question—and actually partially answered in the document you linked. Labour migrants contribute to public finances, while students/family/refugees do not.
In cases where a skill-trade worker is migrating alone, the net fiscal benefit (not including other benefits) is clearly positive. In cases where a skill-trade worker is migrating along with family members, the fiscal impact may end up zero or negative.
But even in those cases—fiscal impact is not everything. In a industry like Canadian construction, where companies are not able to complete projects because they don’t have workers, bringing in skilled labor has positive economic and infrastructural benefits beyond the tax dollars those immigrants pay.
Overall I’m confident that supporting workers to fill skill-trade jobs where there are shortages in the destination country will result in a net positive impact on the destination country.
love the idea! I just glanced over it quickly, and I would say the website didn’t really give me confidence in your calculations.
Here are two quick examples:
On the carbon offsets 101 page, question 11. has a clear typo: “Sure thing! Here’s a human rewrite of your text; Certainly! Carbon offsets are...” → my guess is the entire FAQ was written by an AI and then not proofread very well
On the lifestyle calculator, the “commute” question is about “Your primary mode of transportation and its frequency”. But there is no place to input frequency. The only thing I can put in is a mode, not a frequency. I guess you are asking about my daily commute, and assuming I am doing it 5 days a week, but you aren’t making it clear.
These might seem like small details, but your users will think “if the site gets these details wrong, then why should I trust their calculations?” There is a lot of charlatanry among people making tools like this—people claiming totally unrealistic numbers without good justification. So you really have to go out of your way to prove your rigor.
You have to be demonstrably rigorous, but you also have to make the tool easy to use which is a very tough balance. But that’s the reality of making a tool like this. I started trying to make a similar tool but gave up because I realized getting the balance right would be much harder than I originally anticipated.
Animal welfare is (even) more neglected than global health. My sense is that $100M being spent in a coordinated manner would have an outsized effect on the field. It would help catalyze future organizations and future funding to a greater extent than it would if spent on global health.
Very helpful to learn from your perspective here—thanks so much for taking the time to write it up. Best of luck in what comes next!
Hey! I’ve paused my work on this project—still think it’s very important just had to prioritize other things in my life. Very happy to talk though. I’ll DM you
Hi Bella,
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Updated the form so people can give qualitative feedback there. Will make the google sheet clearer, and see if I can make the title and copy more compelling. Appreciate it!
I found that ACE estimates that the Humane League an estimate of between −6 and 13 farmed animals spared per dollar donated. If anyone has other sources or perspectives to share on this, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Echoing themes of what some other people have said, I think it’s important to have space in your life where you are not always optimizing for effectiveness. You were on vacation! Choosing to use some of your vacation time and a significant chunk of money is admirable.
The ONLY worry I would have if I were in your shoes from an EA perspective is “this $1000 I spent, would I have otherwise donated it to a super effective charity?” If the answer is yes then maybe there’s some reflection to do about how you are approaching effectiveness. But if—as I’m guessing—that $1000 came out of money that you would have spent to make yourself happy I’m some other way, then it’s admirable you decided to use it to help this dog.
How I think about it: I have a effective giving budget, and a guilt-free spending on myself budget. I spend $1000+ per year on things like movies, going out to eat, etc., and don’t feel bad about it because I have budgeted for it and can’t do an effectiveness calculation every time I make a decision about how to spend my time or money.
Thanks—maybe I’m giving them too much trust.
In their impact report they say “We’ve granted out $14.89m in total and we estimate that it will avert 102m tonnes in CO2-equivalent emissions.”
I would not give too much credence to that from a non-EA aligned org, but I’ve been giving them decent credence with regards to counterfactual impact reporting since they’re EA aligned.
You’re saying I should treat their reports less like givewell reports, and more like I would treat a random non EA charity. Any particular arguments for why? Or is it just that you wouldn’t take the prior of assuming that they are at the evaluation quality of givewell? (Or maybe you don’t trust givewell on this either)
I have actually been thinking of creating a tool to help people do exactly what you are trying to do! I will DM you after I make my first version to get your input
Were in a little bit of a tangent but an interesting one I think. I’ve heard that idea before about special obligation towards christians, but I’ve never found it very compelling—less for strict theological reasons and more for emotional, philosophical, and commonsense morality reasons (my common sense may differ from others’ of course).
I’m much more moved by the story of the Good Samaritan or Jesus’ instruction to care for the least of these than Paul’s exhortations.
But I also don’t put that much stock in what Paul says relative to other Christians (https://www.modelsandmorality.com/blog/st-paul-was-just-some-guy-so-hes-not-always-right).
Fixed—thanks!
I’m so glad to hear it
That’s awesome to hear—it was worth the effort of me writing it up then!
Agreed with harfe’s comment—if your goal is just to offset your own emissions then you would probably want to donate a bit less. If you don’t fly more than the average American, then probably $20. Veganism might push the number down a little bit too, but like harfe said, the intercontinental flights are a bigger factor.
Of course I wouldn’t discourage anyone from donating above and beyond the amount needed to offset their own emissions!
I’d be curious for your hypothesis on what type of activities are likely to be highest ROI for future animal welfare in Africa. E.g.,
Policy advocacy with individual governments
Cross government collaboration
Resources for farmers/food processors