Psychology student wishing to one day be a professor of neurosociopsychology in order to provide broad and specific consulting for nonprofits.
Prof.Weird
Karma: 41
[Question] Any EA Documenters/Cinematographers who want to make an EA documentary?
[Question] Have You Been Maintaining Your Healthy Core Four?
[Question] Your Altruism Movie Suggestions?
[Question] Is EA too theoretical? Can we reward practicality?
[Question] What good are you doing today?
[Question] Infohazards: The Future Is Disbelieving Facts?
I truly want Effective Altruism to flourish, but I am concerned with the EA handbooks, the backbone of the EA community, being too theoretical. Donating and volunteering aside, there are be driving principles of EA which are not summarised as daily practices, and thus the EA community merely the theorise about them. Práctica principles such as decision making ratios between income, expense and donations or the exact tenants of thinking globally and acting locally (such as being aware of what actions will/won’t make positive/negative change). These are actionable practices distilled from the EA theory and they may go a long way towards helping individuals live altruism effectively and not just think about it.
The practice of the giving pledge, a daily practice distilled from an EA principle, is among the most galvanising and wide-spread ideas even beyond the EA community. In my undergraduate study of both marketing and psychology, I am learning the power of distilling theory into simplified, actionable steps. For this reason, it is no surprise the giving pledge is talked about in new cycles, suggested by celebrities and understood by the average person. On the other hand, I find it personally hard to keep up with the evolving, contrasting theory of EA’s global catastrophic risks, highest priorities, socialism vs capitalism debates and general philosophical questions. Reading about how nuclear weapons are an issue we should be aware of for half-a-dozen reasons doesn’t give me any idea as to what to do next. On the other hand, I’ve sent messages to my local MPs in Australia about investing in the Adani coal mines and have genuinely make a difference; I didn’t need to read an article to understand why and the practice seemed obvious, simple and easy to do.
[Question] Should EA Use Gamification for Fundraising/Volunteering?
[Question] How To/Should We Constantly Be Altruistic?
[Question] What Would A Discipline of Altruism Look Like?
Very interesting concepts! I have one comment and one contact offering which may be helpful in adding a new perspective to your core assumptions (primarily that systemic solutions, such as empowering the next generation of African economics students to help change legislation, would indeed be effective altruism):
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I performed a broad and rather unrigorous quantitative overview of the strategic qualities of the top charities of GiveWell’s top ten (OpenPhil, which is a major pioneer of bit-based giving, donates the most to GiveWell’s suggestions), GiveWell’s ‘ineffective’ charities (charities deemed not cost-effective or evidence-based enough) and Charity Entrepreneurship’s incubated charities to determine what strategic qualities are most utilised by the highest-impact charities. What I found was that qualities relating to hit-based principles (primarily that of prioritising high reward, high risk interventions such as innovations and systemic solutions) didn’t align with the high-impact charities and in fact the ‘ineffective’ charities aligned slightly more with the qualities of hit-based principles. The explanation I found most compelling was that the complexity necessary for high risk and high reward interventions (such as systemic wherein the results are fairly unclear) to success not only bumped up the costs considerably but also the resistance from donors to continue donating due to the complexity obscuring the direct effect of the charity (‘how can we know it was helping the African economists which helped improve development? There’s many other changes since then which could also have contributed’). And though there are a few statistical methods to try and tease out approximate benefit, systemic interventions may always be marred by unclear impacts, unforeseeable obstacles and undue resistance from donors and the system being changed. My documentation for this qualitative overview can be found here: https://6559c6fb-82b8-43c6-8296-70e9946338cc.filesusr.com/ugd/ed2a7c_e6005590c87341b1ac2e1d13d861d4d1.pdf with page 6 being the colour-coded summary spreadsheet.
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The explanation above was mostly galvanised by the social innovator Andrew Benedict-Nelson (https://albnelson.com). Andrew’s explanation was rooted in a history of successful systemic change from within the private sector such as Carnegie & Rockefella spending their private wealth to fund, among other creative means, medical conferences designed to increase the scientific approach within the medical industry. Andrew’s suggestion was then to tie hit-based giving in with the private sector especially due to the private sector’s openness to high risk, high reward investments. If you’d like me to connect you to pick his brain, I’d be happy to!
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I know this is a bit contrarian but I’m asking just out of interest as opposed to critique. What’s your thoughts on Neartermism and might it also require formalizing in order to provide a clear opposing theory to strength both Longtermism and Neartermism research?
Thank you for this comment!
Also, your charity is an inspiration, thank you for being part of the global solution, Peter!
I found this fascinating but, as someone who found it too hard to read, memorise and utilise it all. Are some principles most important to prioritise in your opinion and some principles hardest/rarest to practice? Also, do you feel reading this book genuinely changed much in your life?
After speaking with a few charity entrepreneurs related to EA, it seems this book is the white whale of charity leaders; highly sought after but far too big to take on. Any summarising thoughts would be awesome to hear!
What progress is being made on any of these areas for improvement? Would be excited to help out!
If there’s not much in the way of projects currently, it would be awesome to select just one of the concerns to start with and see if there’s some systemic way within he EA community to tackle it. ‘Reinventing the wheel’ as an example would be a fascinating challenge to try and tackle. Solving it could mean more trust, investment, cohesion and effectiveness of the EA community.
I’d be keen to lend my statistical abilities to track and test some changes in the EA community. Perhaps a few EA chapters could test one potential solution such as gamification (adapted from ‘How to Change’ by Katy Milkman), and then the progress tracked over a period of time.
Suggestions? Any shortcuts past the barriers to entry in humanitarian volunteering? It seems like a catch 22 to need experience to get experience. I’m studying for a bachelor’s degree but in the meantime want to provide value to awesome causes!
There’s a potential to have the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubator program documented from the perspective of the participants. I’m currently in one of the last rounds and if I do go through I’ll see if the CE team like the documentary idea. I figured it would be helpful to have some EA document it’s involved if that goes through (if I don’t get in, I still intend on passing this idea into the CE team and any expressions of interest from EA documenters).
However this is just a convenient potential documentary given the incubator is starting soon. I’m currently writing a book about neartermist strategies in EA and thought documenting my testing of them would help engage EA members who align with Neartermism rather than Longtermism. But as a new avenue entirely, I think someone needs to get the ball rolling on EA documentaries and I figured there must be some eager EA documenters who want to express interest.
All of this is to say this isn’t a sure-fire project, but any documentary makers (or staff therein) who do express interest will get brought up as potential candidates during conversations about EA documentaries (these conversations are certain to happen but gauging interest seemed to be a good first step).