I’m just a normal, functioning member of the human race, and there’s no way anyone can prove otherwise
Matt_Sharp
Karma: 960
I believe CEA’s general lack of engagement with social media (and with some traditional media) was a deliberate choice of not wanting EA to grow too quickly, and because of concerns about the ‘fidelity’ of ideas. See e.g. this CEA blog post. There has been some previous discussion of this on the Forum, e.g. here and here.
I don’t know if this is still their approach, or will be once they have a new Executive Director in place.
This post seems very much aligned with (and perhaps inspired by) this highly commended article and this podcast.
Supporting economic growth seems to be very much a mainstream, common-sense idea (in the UK at least it receives a fair amount of coverage in the press). Given this, I’m not convinced simply talking about the benefits of economic growth is particularly valuable. However, perhaps you’ll be recommending particular career paths, neglected policies, or organisations that may have a particularly outsized impact on promoting growth and could be supported?
Fair point—it might be ‘sizable minority’ then (say 25-40%) rather than small majority who aren’t in a position to give >10%.
I agree with the overall claims.
However, with regards to Claim 1:
There are good reasons for some people to not give at some points in their lives — for instance, if it leaves someone with insufficient resources to live a comfortable life, or if it would interfere strongly with the impact someone could have in their career. However, I expect these situations will be the exception rather than the rule within the current EA community, [6] and even where they do apply there are often ways around them (e.g. exceptions to the Pledge for students and people who are unemployed).
I disagree with the phrasing ‘exception rather than the rule’. To me this suggests that there are only rare and uncommon reasons for failing to donate at least 10%.
But in footnote 6 you say “the 2022 EA survey found that ~50% of respondents were full-time employed”.
If this survey is representative, this suggests that a small majority (or sizable minority) of EAs could plausibly not be in a position to donate at least 10% (of those full-time employed, some proportion will be on low-income salaries, or trying to save up to ensure they have a big enough ‘personal runway’).
I may also be missing something major, but I was thinking of opportunity cost in terms of the foregone benefits achieved by donating to another organisation.
If funds are allocated to future programs (or programs that require a long time to implement), they won’t count as being in the reserves.
Ah yeah—in that case I think my point would only apply if the org was increasing its overall revenue and expenditure.
Yeah, having some reserves is obviously sensible risk management.
But if an organisation has a policy of holding 3-5 years worth of reserves, this implies that for every dollar donated which is used on its activities in a given year, another 3-5 dollars worth of donations simply ends up sitting in a bank.
When there are many other EA-aligned organisations doing valuable work that are struggling for funding, the opportunity cost appears substantial.
Assessment of reserves seems most useful when considering organisations that would otherwise be recommended because their activities seem valuable, so it’s not like Castle Buying Charity would be recommended just for having a sensible reserves policy.
I didn’t downvote. However, here are a few reasons why others may have done so:
The idea intuitively sounds like it could be beneficial. However, lots of ideas that sound promising either don’t work at all, only have a small beneficial effect, or sometimes even have a harmful effect. What evidence do you have (perhaps from similar ideas already being implemented elsewhere) to show that your idea will work?
We have limited resources available to help improve the world. Given this, we should first focus our resources on where we can have the biggest impact. Your idea appears to be focused on Low Income Communities in the US.
Relative to other communities in the US, this seems a reasonable choice. However, from a global perspective, there are many people who have a much lower income than those in the US. This means that even if your idea works, it is going to have to be particularly impactful to be as cost-effective as other ways of helping those in poverty (such as simply giving money to the world’s poorest)
You state that it is “Simple enough, very cost effective”
I agree that the idea is simple, and this is a strength of it.
However, you have provided no evidence or quantitative estimates to suggest why it could be very cost-effective. What are the likely costs? How big are the likely effects? What studies and research support your claims? How do the costs and effects compare to other ways we can help those in poverty?
Agreed that it probably makes sense to be closer to 60 years, or maybe even a bit lower (though if there are major advances in life-extension over the coming decades, then it could be much higher for young children who will have the most chance to benefit).
I’d note that health-related quality of life is likely to be less than 1 per year, perhaps 0.7 or 0.8.
Regarding counterfactual mortality, wouldn’t this largely be taken into account of in the overall estimate of life expectancy? Though this overall estimate probably doesn’t include things like major catastrophes (devastating pandemics, x-risks)
This is a good point, and it’s likely that for many people there will be quite a wide range in the variance of how they experience a disability. If so, then you’d expect most people with a given disability to disagree with the GBD weight, simply because they would personally rate it somewhat higher or lower than the average value.
EDIT to add: In fact it seems the 2010 GBD weights were obtained by surveying members of the public, so it could be the case that the weights are either higher or lower than most individuals with a given disability would have indicated if they had been asked.
Hey Vasco—I love how your posts often bring together points about different cause areas, making connections between topics that those focused on particular causes are perhaps either unaware of or choose to ignore because they are complicated and inconvenient!
Do you have an estimate of how likely an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario (ASRS) is to occur over the next (e.g.) 100 years? My intuition is that for the cases of volcanic and impact winters it’s extremely low, perhaps less than 0.1%. In which case it probably comes down to the likelihood and consequences of nuclear war.
I also wonder to what extent food shocks could be mitigated by the development of plant (or fungi) crops that are much more able to tolerate ASRS conditions. I can imagine these sorts of crops might be developed for the purposes of space exploration, e.g. if humans attempt to establish permanent bases on the Moon and Mars over the coming decades.
Note that a bunch of posts on this topic have previously been written—so probably worth checking them out first: See: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/aging-research
Many of these were from 3-5 years ago, so it could be worth providing an update. It could also be worth creating a really thorough overview of the various arguments in one post, assuming none of the previous posts are in-depth enough, or lots of points are spread out across numerous posts.
I agree that ‘most of the badness of death comes from the person losing future happy life’.
However, there are also other factors that are relevant to whether ‘preventing a person’s existence is close to as bad as killing them’ (this obviously also depends what is meant by ‘close to’).
The claim seems to imply that we are doing something almost as bad as murder if we are failing to have as many children as possible. But a society where legislation reflected this position would reduce the quality of life of people who don’t want many (or any) children, would force women into being baby-making machines, and would plausibly result in a situation where individual children aren’t viewed as particularly important (if one dies, well, no time to grieve—another one is on the way). This strikes me as more absurd and dystopian than advocating for human extinction.
From a consequentialist utilitarian perspective, there is also the impact on those that know the existing person.
The death of an existing person often causes suffering and loss for those that know them. Whereas preventing the existence of a future person typically does not cause this wider suffering (except perhaps in some cases, e.g. when parents strongly desire a child but are unable to conceive).
This is a reasonable argument, and seems quite plausible for farmed animals.
I think the biggest uncertainty here—at least in terms of impact on animals—is what each additional human life means for wild animals. If wild animals typically have net negative lives, and more humans reduces the number of wild animals, then perhaps family planning charities aren’t beneficial for animals overall.
“Write a long essay on the risks associated with writing a very short post as an April Fool’s day prank” :)
April Fool’s day is a time when many individuals and companies choose to play pranks on their friends, family, and clients for a good laugh. While it can be a fun way to break the monotony of daily routines, pranking others can sometimes backfire and cause unintended consequences. This is especially true when it comes to writing a very short post as an April Fool’s day prank.
One of the primary risks involved in writing a very short post as an April Fool’s day prank is the possibility of offending or upsetting someone. If the joke is crafted in a way that targets a particular individual or group, it could be viewed as insensitive, hurtful, or even discriminatory. This could lead to hurt feelings, angry responses, and even legal repercussions in extreme cases.
Another risk associated with writing a very short post as an April Fool’s day prank is the potential for it to be misinterpreted or taken seriously. In today’s age of social media, it can be challenging to discern what is real and what is not, particularly with short posts that lack context or nuance. If someone falls for the joke and shares it with others without realizing it’s a prank, the misinformation can quickly spread and lead to confusion or even panic.
Furthermore, writing a very short post as an April Fool’s day prank can also damage one’s reputation. If the joke is inappropriate, offensive, or causes harm, it can tarnish the image and credibility of the person or company responsible for it. This could lead to a loss in trust, credibility, and even business opportunities, as clients or customers may choose to distance themselves from the offender.
Ultimately, it’s essential to weigh the risks and rewards carefully before deciding to write a very short post as an April Fool’s day prank. While it can be a fun way to engage with others and break up the monotony of daily life, it’s critical to ensure that the joke is harmless, appropriate, and doesn’t cause unintended consequences. If in doubt, it’s always better to err on the side of caution and refrain from attempting a prank altogether.
In conclusion, writing a very short post as an April Fool’s day prank can be a risky endeavor. It can offend, upset, mislead, and damage one’s reputation if not carefully crafted and executed. As such, those who choose to participate in pranking others should take care to consider the potential consequences and risks involved before acting. The responsibility of ensuring that the joke is harmless and appropriate ultimately lies with the prankster, and it’s vital to remember this when attempting to prank others.
I welcome the footnote setting out the detailed cost calculation.
It is this commitment to rigour and transparency that demonstrates the intellectual and moral superiority of effective altruists compared to other humans, and, indeed, all sentient life.
Hey Spencer!
From the 2022 South Africa paper, it appears that the bedaquiline-based regimen actually consists of 8 different drugs (see table S1), with a total cost per treatment of $6402 in the base-case. It’s not clear to me how much each drug contributes to the total cost, but you should be able to work this out from the regimen info from table S1 and the drug cost data from the medicines catalog (from reference 24 of the paper). Presumably if you’ve done it right you should end up with ~$6,402. Then you can just tweak the cost of bedaquiline (I’m assuming no other drugs have also changed price).
If you manage to do this, then quite plausibly your updated cost per treatment will fall within the range of the paper’s one-way sensitivity analysis ($5,122 to $7,682), i.e. Figure 2. From this you can eyeball what the new ICER will be:
Alternatively, you could try reaching out to the lead author—assuming they still have their model to hand, it should be very easy for them to adjust the cost of BDQ and see what the model outputs :)
Also, just to caution, the South Africa paper is “from the perspective of the South Africa national healthcare provider” and so uses the GDP per capita of South Africa as the willingness-to-pay threshold, and some of the health and cost data is also South Africa-specific. So I don’t think this can easily be used to infer the change in cost-effectiveness in other settings (though it might give a rough indication of whether or not there could be a substantial change).