Thanks! Coincidentally, I also found Dylan’s article (as well as another study from 2015) and added an answer based on it, before seeing yours.
EDIT: Oh, I now see that you were linking to an earlier piece by Dylan from mid-2015, also published in Vox. The article in my answer is from late 2018.
Since writing the question, I found this study estimating the impact of PEPFAR during its first decade. It concludes that the program resulted in 11,560,114 life-years gained (p. 3). Rough linear extrapolation from the chart on p. 5 (though note that growth was superlinear in the reference period) would suggest an additional 25 million or so life-years were gained between 2014 and 2021, vindicating the “tens of millions of life-years” Open Phil estimate.
Dylan Matthews points to another study finding 1.2 million deaths averted by PEPFAR by 2007. Matthews points out that naive extrapolation from this finding would suggest 6 million deaths saved by the end of 2018 (when the Vox article was written), also noting that the true figure is probably higher because of the study’s focus on a limited number of partner countries and because of significant growth in PEPFAR’s funding over time. In drawing this inference, Matthews links to a webpage on the PEPFAR’s website. The link now redirects to PEPFAR’s homepage, but a Wayback Machine search reveals the contents of the original URL: a press release announcing that “Latest Results Show PEPFAR Has Saved Over 17 Million Lives”. However, again no source is cited for the estimate. The press release does mention a report, but the archived report I found had no explanation for its estimates of lives saved.
Should we split this entry and have separate articles for each of the two organizations?
I agree with your assessment. It is interesting to note that Singer’s comments are in response to Holden, who used to hold a similar view but no longer does (I believe).
The other part I found surprising was Singer’s comparison of longtermism with past harmful ideologies. At least in principle, I do think that, when evaluating moral views, we should take into consideration not only the contents of those views but also the consequences of publicizing them. But:
These two types of evaluation should be clearly distinguished and done separately, both for conceptual clarity and because they may require different responses. If the problem with a view is not that it is false but that it is dangerous, the appropriate response is probably not to reject the view, but to instead be strategic about how one discusses it publicly (e.g. give preference to less public contexts, frame the discussion in ways that reduce the view’s dangers, etc.)
As Richard Chappell pointed out recently, if one is going to consider the consequences of publicizing a view when evaluating it, one should also consider the consequences of publicizing objections to that view. And it seems like objections of the form “we should reject X because publicizing X will have bad consequences” have often had bad consequences historically.
The moral evaluation of the consequences expected to result from public discussion of a view should not beg the question against the view under consideration! Longtermists believe that people in the future, no matter how removed from us, are moral patients whom we should help. So in evaluating longtermism, one cannot ignore that, from a longtermist perspective, publicly demonizing this view—by comparing it to the Third Reich, Soviet communism, or white supremacy—will likely have very bad consequences (e.g. by making society less willing to help far-future people). (Note that this is very different from the usual arguments for utilitarianism being self-effacing: those arguments purport to establish that publicizing utilitarianism has bad consequences, as evaluated by utilitarianism itself. Here, by contrast, a non-longtermist moral standard is assumed when evaluating the consequences of publicizing longtermism.)
Picking reference classes is tricky. Perhaps it’s plausible to put longtermism in the reference class of “utopian ideology with considerable abuse potential”. But it also seems plausible to put longtermism in the reference class of “enlightened worldview that seeks to expand the circle of moral concern” (cf. Holden’s “Radical empathy”). In considering the consequences of publicizing longtermism, it seems objectionable to highlight one reference class, which suggests bad consequences, and ignore the other reference class, which suggests good consequences.
I think that both moral uncertainty and non-moral epistemic uncertainty (if you’ll allow the distinction) both suggest we should assign some weight to what people say is valuable.
Only ~7% of all people who ever lived are currently alive. What’s the justification for focusing on humans living in 2022? Is it just that figuring out the values of past generations is less tractable?
Giving Green no longer recommends TSM, although the reasons prompting the withdrawal of the recommendation appear to be unrelated to the incidents described above:
we have concerns about Sunrise’s need for additional funding and its lack of clear strategy beyond 2021. Sunrise’s budget grew explosively from just $50,000 in 2017 to $15 million in 2020 and 2021. This kind of rapid growth can strain any organization, and it appears that Sunrise is no different, as 2021 was a year of internal friction in the Movement. Also aside from some advocacy work on climate legislation this fall, we did not see Sunrise engaging in the kinds of mass organizing and mobilizing activities that we anticipated from them. Further, we have yet to see Sunrise’s strategy going forward, so it is unclear how Sunrise plans to adapt, grow, and absorb additional funding in the future.
In sum, Sunrise has helped propel climate to the forefront of American politics, but its future is unclear. Based on Sunrise’s prior record of success and our model of cost-effectiveness, we are optimistic that they have the potential to drive political changes that lead to more ambitious US federal legislation on climate. However, we are concerned by their rapid growth, internal discord, and lack of clear strategy for the future. While we are hopeful that Sunrise will address these challenges through its current strategy discussion and move forward stronger, we will not know the outcome of this process until at least Q1 of 2022. Because we are unsure of the Sunrise Movement’s future plans, we have decided not to recommend the Sunrise Movement Education Fund as a top charity for the 2021 Giving Season. When we can better assess its recent impact and its future strategy, we look forward to reviewing the Sunrise Movement Education Fund again.
I like having a single “external praise” tag rather than three “praise” tags corresponding to the three “criticism” tags, for the reasons you note.
This was probably the intended link.
and allows for completed changes to be hidden
Having an option to “resolve” a comment thread (analogous to “closing” a GitHub issue) would be very useful, especially for Wiki comments.
Just saw this—added.
I see.
My overall sense is that the scope of the entry is insufficiently crisp, and that it’s probably better to discuss these topics under other entries. For instance, there has been considerable discussion about the degree to which charities or causes differ in cost-effectiveness, so I would say that the question of whether the EA community should try to persuade people to switch causes rather than to improve their effectiveness within the cause they already support should be addressed as part of that discussion, in the cost-effectiveness entry. Some of this could also be discussed under effective altruism messaging. Another relevant existing entry is local priorities research.
Also seconded.
In the meantime, you can get pseudo dark mode with the dark reader extension.
It would be great if this talk was transcribed.
Re-reading this exchange, I’d like to add that it may be worth discussing those externalities in other Wiki articles, such as dietary change.
Your reply to Eric’s fourth objection makes an important point that I haven’t seen mentioned before:
By contrast, I think there’s a much more credible risk that defenders of conventional morality may use dismissive rhetoric about “grandiose fantasies” (etc.) to discourage other conventional thinkers from taking longtermism and existential risks as seriously as they ought, on the merits, to take them. (I don’t accuse Schwitzgebel, in particular, of this. He grants that most people unduly neglect the importance of existential risk reduction. But I do find that this kind of rhetoric is troublingly common amongst critics of longtermism, and I don’t think it’s warranted or helpful in any way.)
A view, of course, can be true even if defending it in public is expected to have bad consequences. But if we are going to consider the consequences of publicly defending a view in our evaluation of it, it seems we should also consider the consequences of publicly objecting to that view when evaluating those objections.
I think this talk, as well as Ben’s subsequent comments on the 80k podast, serve as a good illustration of the importance of being clear, precise, and explicit when evaluating causes, especially those often supported by relatively vague analogies or arguments with unstated premises. I don’t recall how my views about the seriousness of AI safety as a cause area changed in response to watching this, but I do remember feeling that I had a better understanding of the relevant considerations and that I was in a better position to make an informed assessment.
I’m surprised to see that this post hasn’t yet been reviewed. In my opinion, it embodies many of the attributes I like to see in EA reports, including reasoning transparency, intellectual rigor, good scholarship, and focus on an important and neglected topic.
I know Uruguay well (my father used to own a house near Colonia del Sacramento) and I would agree with your assessment. Montevideo is about two hours away from Buenos Aires by ferry, so an additional advantage is relative proximity to a major metropolis.
Also Luca Righetti. Kudos to Johannes and Luca for setting such an impressive example.