MaxDalton

Karma: 5,009

I’m currently on a career break, and so won’t be checking the Forum for a bit!

Before that I was Executive Director at CEA: I set our overall strategy, hired people to further in our work, and managed and empowered the leadership team.

I used to be a moderator here, and helped to launch the new version of the Forum in 2018. Before that I studied economics, did some mediocre global priorities research, and helped to set up an early version of EA Funds.

Feel free to reach out if you think I might be able to help you. Follow the links to give (anonymous) feedback to me.

MaxDalton 13 Oct 2015 16:17 UTC
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in reply to: Larks’s comment on: EA’s Image Problem
I think you make a good point about virtue not being self-sacrifice, and I definitely see your first point too, particularly for lots of people currently involved in effective altruism.

However, of course people can only vary their income within certain limits. There are lots of people who may be earning as much as they possibly can, and yet still be earning something close to £15k, through no fault of their own. I’d aspire to an effective altruism that can accommodate these people too, and I think it’s for people like this that Tom’s point comes into play. However, I think that your caveat is really important for the many other people who have a higher upper limit on their earnings.

MaxDalton 20 Jan 2016 6:15 UTC
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on: EA is elitist. Should it stay that way?
Thanks for the post! I mostly agree with your key points: some people are (unfortunately) a lot more powerful than others, and this seems like a reason to focus on recruiting them. I also agree that, for this reason and others, it’s not obvious that EA should try to be a mass movement.

However, I think that you’re missing some benefits of having a more diverse, non-elite movement, and so reaching a conclusion which is too strong. In short, my argument is that the accusation of elitism, and elitism itself can BE hurtful to EA, not just FEEL hurtful. I’ll focus on three arguments about the consequences of elitism, then make a couple of other points.

First, I think that appearing like an ‘elite’ movement has ambiguous effects on how EA is presented in the media. Whilst it might increase how prestigious EA is, and so make it more attractive, it is also something that I could imagine negative articles about (in fact, I think that there may already be such articles, but I can’t place them right now). Something along the lines of ‘Look at these rich, white, Ivy-league educated men. What do they know about poverty? Why should we listen to them?’. I’m not saying that these arguments are necessarily particularly good ones, just that they could be damaging to EA’s image, which might limit our ability to get more people involved, and retain people.

Second, we sadly currently live in a world where power (in the forms of wealth and political capital that you discussed) correlates with a lot of other characteristics—being white, being male, being cis, being straight, having privileged parents, etc. EA probably over-represents those characteristics already, and this can cause a variety of problems. Less privileged people might feel excluded from the community, which is not nice for them. It may also reduce their participation, and so EA may exclude perspectives or skillsets that are more common in underprivileged groups, and make worse decisions as a result.

Third, it is possible that diversity is correlated with avoiding movement collapse (I’m not sure of this though—perhaps others have done more research). I’ve hinted above at some ways in which this could be brought about: causing negative media attention, and causing individuals to feel excluded, and leave the movement. This might be a really important consideration.

So far I’ve been talking only about the consequences of making EA more elite, but I think it’s important not to dismiss non-consequentialist considerations. It may be that it is just good to promote diversity and fairness whenever you have the chance. There may also be non-consequence based moral reasons to include less powerful people in important decisions that could affect them. (Again, I’m not committing to this position, but it seems worth considering seriously, if we admit some uncertainty about whether utilitarianism is the right moral theory.)

I think that given these considerations, it’s no longer so obvious that EA should be an elite movement. You point out some good reasons that EA should be elite, but there are reasons pointing in the other direction.

But as you point out, the question is not ‘Should EA be elite?‘, but ‘Should EA try to be more or less elite, given where we are at the moment?’. Where are we? EA already seems to be a pretty elite movement: I mentioned the lack of diversity above, and I think we probably have an abnormally high number of billionaires engaged with EA.

So when we account for how elite EA already is, and the risks of being elite, it seems quite possible that EA should be trying to be less elite.

Edit: see http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/sl/celebrating_all_who_are_in_effective_altruism/ and the comments for even more reasons why this is a tricky question!

MaxDalton 18 Aug 2016 12:35 UTC
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in reply to: Kerry_Vaughan’s comment on: Effective Altruists really love EA: Evidence from EA Global
I think the point is that for NPS, we’re interested in what all effective altruists think, since they’re the users of the product. But EAG attendees are not likely to be typical effective altruists: they will probably be more committed, and more positive about EA than a typical EA is.

To continue the Apple analogy, it’s a bit like basing your NPS score not on everyone that buys a laptop, but on the people who comment most on Apple product forums: these people won’t be typical of Apple’s consumers.

MaxDalton 15 Nov 2016 12:57 UTC
−3 points
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on: Integrity for consequentialists
This seems to be an interesting approach to this question. However, for a top level post in this forum, I would like to see more of an attempt to link this directly to effective altruism, which, as many have noted, is not simply consequentialism. There is no mention of ‘effective altruism’, ‘charity’, ‘career’, ‘poverty’, ‘animal’ or ‘existential risk’ (of course effective altruism is broader than these things, but I think this is indicative).

(Writing in a personal capacity)

MaxDalton 12 Dec 2016 8:01 UTC
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in reply to: AlexMennen’s comment on: A new reference site: Effective Altruism Concepts
Hi Alex, thanks for the comment, great to pick up issues like this.

I wrote the article, and I agree and am aware of your original point. Your edit is also correct in that we are using risk aversion in the psychological/pure sense, and so the VNM theory does imply that this form of risk aversion is irrational. However, I think you’re right that, given that people are more likely to have heard of the concept of economic risk aversion, the expected value article is likely to be misleading. I have edited to emphasise the way that we’re using risk aversion in these articles, and to clarify that VNM alone does not imply risk neutrality in an economic sense. I’ve also added a bit more discussion of economic risk aversion. Further feedback welcome!

MaxDalton 13 Dec 2016 11:40 UTC
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in reply to: AlexMennen’s comment on: A new reference site: Effective Altruism Concepts
Thanks, I’ve made some further changes, which I hope will clear things up. Re your first worry, I think that’s a valid point, but it’s also important to cover both concepts. I’ve tried to make the distinction clearer. If that doesn’t address your worry, feel free to drop me a message or suggest changes via the feedback tab, and we can discuss further.

MaxDalton 12 Jan 2017 8:51 UTC
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in reply to: LaurenMcG’s comment on: High Impact Science
This may also be useful: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/cause/medical-research/.

MaxDalton 18 Jan 2017 16:08 UTC
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on: A new reference site: Effective Altruism Concepts
CEA is now considering where to take this project next: how much effort we should put into expanding it, and what new features/content we should focus on. We’d welcome feedback from anyone, regardless of whether you’ve used the site before, via this Google form

MaxDalton 12 Feb 2017 6:36 UTC
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in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: Introducing the Oxford Prioritisation Project blog
Hey Ryan, I’d be particularly interested in hearing more about your reasons for your first point (about theoretical vs. empirical work).

MaxDalton 13 Apr 2017 16:15 UTC
22 points
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on: Two Easy Ways to Help Each Other
[My views, not my employer’s]

I appreciate the spirit in which this was written, and I think we should all be looking out for more ways to help each other, especially in ways that directly improve skills—e.g. through the advice and mentorship you generously offer.

However, some of this feels a little deceptive to me. If people see ‘speaking at a top law school’ as impressive, that’s probably because they think that I was invited because I’m a great speaker/have expertise that lots of people in the law school value. If in fact I was invited just because I was involved in effective altruism, and I only gave a 10 minute talk, I might be giving someone a misleading impression of my talents. Similarly, people might think that receiving the award you describe would require a higher bar of achievement than the one you suggest.

I’m probably overreacting here—this is the sort of thing that people do on CVs all of the time, and so perhaps people automatically downgrade such claims on CVs. However, I think that it’s valuable for our internal culture, and for the community’s reputation, to hold ourselves to high standards, and I think this article would have been better if it had noted these issues. I’m not sure whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

MaxDalton 25 May 2017 13:38 UTC
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in reply to: adom_hartell’s comment on: Returns Functions and Funding Gaps
To disagree slightly with my co-author here… As I understand you, you are conditioning on A being able to expand capacity.

I think what is going on is that you are asking “Should we give to Organization A or Organization B?”. I think your analysis is roughly right as a response to this question. We are not claiming that Organization A is more effective than Organization B.

Instead, what we’re asking at this stage in the paper is more like “Is the total counterfactual impact of giving to Organization A steeply declining at any point?”. We think that the answer is probably “No” for the reasons given. But note that this doesn’t imply that one should always give to Organization A: if A starts off more effective, but returns gradually diminish, then there will still be some point at which it makes sense to start donating to organization B.

Overall, I think there isn’t a disagreement here (although I may have misunderstood), but this is a sign that we should have been clearer in this section—I’ll think about a rewrite.

MaxDalton 25 May 2017 13:49 UTC
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in reply to: Sindy_Li’s comment on: Returns Functions and Funding Gaps
In response to your first paragraph, I think it’s true that GiveWell will have more information about any changes in the returns function. For the reasons given the in the second post, I think it’s unlikely that GiveWell charities do have inflection points in their returns functions. I’m not sure from GiveWell’s writing whether they think that there are inflection points or not (In particular, I don’t think they take a clear stance on this in the linked post).

I think your second paragraph is answered by footnote 1 of the first post. I don’t fully understand how your third and fourth paragraphs relate to the posts. Are you simply arguing that a fuller analysis would incorporate the size of individual donations, not the total level of funding? This seems like a plausible extension.

MaxDalton 9 Jun 2017 13:50 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: MichaelPlant’s comment on: Announcing Effective Altruism Grants
1. We have set a tight deadline in order to allow us to process applications before the start of the academic year, since we see funding for study as one of the main use cases. If the project is successful, we will set more generous deadlines in the future.
2. CEA may not be able to fund for-profit organisations, because we have to use money to further our charitable objects. However, we encourage applications from for-profits. We may then, with the applicant’s permission, share information about the projects with private donors who might provide funding. In general, there aren’t classes of projects that we won’t consider: we want to cast the net wide. However, if others are unsure, I recommend that they email eagrants@centreforeffectivealtruism.org to clarify on a case-by-case basis.

MaxDalton 12 Jun 2017 7:21 UTC
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in reply to: Denkenberger’s comment on: Announcing Effective Altruism Grants
Thanks! Please use the resume.

MaxDalton 13 Jun 2017 11:14 UTC
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in reply to: Josh Jacobson’s comment on: Announcing Effective Altruism Grants
Yes, this project is fully funded, from donations from a large donor given for this purpose.

MaxDalton 13 Jun 2017 13:58 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: praline’s comment on: Announcing Effective Altruism Grants
You should write it briefly in the application. As the form mentions, the character limit is deliberately strict to encourage you to focus on the most important issues.

MaxDalton 25 Jul 2017 7:26 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: EAGx Relaunch
[I work for CEA on EA Grants.] We received over 700 applications, and we only offered interviews to roughly the top 10% of applicants. (We’ll do a more detailed writeup once the process is over.)

MaxDalton 25 Jul 2017 7:44 UTC
10 points
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in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: EAGx Relaunch
The main reason that we could not interview more people for EA Grants at this stage is that we had a limited amount of staff time to conduct interviews, rather than because of funding constraints.

I think you are right that the number of excellent EA Grants proposals suggests that small projects are often currently restricted by receiving funding. However, I think that this is less because there is not enough money, and more because there aren’t good mechanisms for matching small projects up with money. You could say it is funding-mechanism-constrained. Of course, EA Grants is trying to address this. This was a smaller trial round, to see how promising the project is, and work out how to run it well. We will reassess after we’ve completed this round, but I think that it’s very possible that we will scale the program up, to begin to address this issue.

[I’m working for CEA on EA Grants.]

MaxDalton 9 Oct 2017 17:15 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Jon_Behar’s comment on: Effective Altruism Grants project update
With regards to animal welfare, we passed on several applications which we found promising, but couldn’t fully assess, to the Open Philanthropy Project, so we may eventually facilitate more grants in this area.

I would not have predicted such an extreme resource split going in: we received fewer high quality, EA-aligned applications in the global development space than we expected. However, CEA is currently prioritising work on improving the long-term future, so I would have expected the EA community and long-term future categories to receive more funding than global development or animal welfare.

MaxDalton 21 Oct 2017 6:25 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: astupple’s comment on: Rob Wiblin’s top EconTalk episode recommendations
Watch this space. CEA is working on putting together a set of ~20 interesting articles and talks that have come out of EA in recent years.

Speaking for myself, not CEA, I’d also encourage you and others to use the EA forum as a place for linking to great EA content. I don’t think we should just flood the forum with content—one of the great things about the forum is that it tends to have higher quality posts than e.g. Facebook. But linking to good content allows both for curation and discussion.