My previous career was as a manager in a fraud detection team, however I have now returned to fulltime study (psychology) in search of more fulfilling daily work and having more time for EA-related interests.
I have also been researching antimalarial bed nets and malaria morbidity modelling.
However, I am keenly interested in most EA-mainstream cause areas: global poverty, animal welfare, improving our long-term prospects and/âor general movement building.
Thank you Nick. A lot of interesting information for an accessible 5-minute read.
As we speak, artesunate still cures over 99.9% of malaria casesâif a little slower than before. But we donât know when that will become 99%, then only 90% at which point weâll need alternatives.
Iâm trying to get my head around the meaning of these numbers. The questions below are largely academic (no goal in mind), surely difficult, and likely dumb, so please feel no pressure to devote valuable time :)
(1) Are these cure rates in reference to the outcome of Therapeutic Efficacy Studies (TES) as described in this WHO document (Section 4.1) and where the outcome is an âadequate clinical and parasitological response (ACPR)â (p. 11 of that document)?
If it is:
(2) What is your best estimate for how often ACPR would be âachievedâ without treatment?* I believe this would be difficult to answer. My estimate right now based off close to zero rationale: 4% (95% CI: 0.25% â 60%).
(3) What would you estimate the effect on saving a childâs life would be in a drop from 100% to 90%?* Maybe can be quantified as (but you likely have a better way): For every 1000 children who come into a clinic for malaria treatment, how many would survive if (a) artesunate is administered versus if (b) no treatment was provided, given (i) 100% efficacy versus (ii) 90% efficacy.
My suspicion is that the ratio of p(ACPR | artesunate) : p(ACPR | no treatment) underestimates the effect on mortality (and severe malaria) due to the binary outcome measure not capturing benefits from artesunate reducing without eliminating the degree of parasitaemia(?)
Thanks again.
*in high transmission areas where inclusion criteria is âpatients with fever, aged 6â59 months, with an asexual parasitaemia ranging between 2000 and 200 000 parasites/âÎźLâ
Strongly agree with Martin on the likely direction of SDB, for the reasons stated. Included within SDB of course (and probably making up most of it) is people âlying to themselvesâ.
I also really like the original post and agree with the general sentiment. People can genuinely encounter health problems that they would not have on an omnivorous diet. It should be taken very seriously. Honest information and understanding is important.
From personal experience, a proper transition was not a problem for health as I was super-conscious of getting everything I needed. The minor health problems I have had, that could potentially claim veganism as a cause, have come from slacking off.
Regarding this potential, I think another problem is that imperfect health and deficiencies are common, and it is easy and convenient to attribute veganism as a cause. For someone on an omnivorous diet, the cause is attributed to something more specific, or cause attribution is ignoredâthey are just ânaturallyâ deficient and should take certain supplements/âdrugs.
Taking myself as an example.
Iâm often tired. Is it because I drink way too much coffee, have poor sleep, or am I iron deficient? Iâve never been the most energetic person, so maybe it is my imagination too. Or it might be mental health related.
Iâve been getting a lot of pain around my knees lately. Is that poor running or squat technique, or could it be a lack of Omega 3?
For both of the above, maybe I am just ageing? (this could be significant because it happens to everyone).
I donât have much to add. For reasons already stated I believe he is currently having a negative impact. I am much less sure whether his life thus far has been net positive or negative.
I am curious about the reasons for downvoting the post. I have a few suspicions but none seem that bad and I think it is an interesting question.
Thank you Will. Not the only person to point out the ineffectual title, so I have updated it to something a bit more clickbaity. I considered âchlorfenapyr DESTROYS malariaâ, but decided to tone it back a little.
If anyone is interested in âThe Methods of Ethicsâ, I have not read it, but I do recommend âThe Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethicsâ co-authored by Katarzyna De Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer.
If I recall correctly, they go through every (at least many) chapter of The Methods of Ethics. They break down Sidgwickâs arguments in clear ways, discuss objections including from many contemporary philosophers, and then typically defend Sidgwick. I suspect most people would find this a more useful read than the original text.
I also believe Singer has stated that it was through work on this book that he changed from being a preference utilitarian to more of a classical utilitarian
Iâm very unsure, but slightly lean towards animal welfare due to the heuristic that the further outside typical moral circles the more neglected are the opportunities
Thanks. This is excellent and it will affect my reading (at least by getting my hands on the Buchanan and Powell book).
For some of the reviews (e.g. Moral Uncertainty, The Blank Slate) you note that you downgrade them for not closely addressing the âmoral progressâ topic. Would be good if you noted how you rate them for what they are trying to address.
Also worry about the weirdness. Ariel said themselves:
When I started as an EA, I found other EAsâ obsession with animal welfare rather strange. How could these people advocate for helping chickens over children in extreme poverty? I changed my mind for a few reasons.
This might not be realistic for Ariel, but it would have been ironic if this obsession was even greater and enough to cause Ariel to shy away from EA, so that they never contributed to shifting priorities more to animal welfare.
But I also agree this isnât necessarily a reason to shy away. Being disingenuous about our personal priorities to seem more mainstream seems wrongâlike a bait-and-switch or cult-like tactics of getting people in the door and introducing heavier stuff as they get more emotionally invested. I like the framing of being more humble/âagnostic, but maybe we (speaking as individuals) need to be careful that is genuine epistemological humility and not an act.
Hello Patrick.
For WHO estimates of case incidence and deaths since 2000 (as of 2022 report), go here, click on âAnnexes in Excel Formatâ and it is Annex 4-F.
If you are want country numbers by estimate approach, I did that manually by combining Annex 4-F data and text from World Malaria Report 2022 (same link above), Annex for Table 3.1 (pp 132 â 136). This is it
If you are after GBD data (regarding Appendix), this is the tool to use
I hope that is helpful. Let me know of any questions.
Vegan advocacy groups should consider regularly donating blood as representatives of their groups. At my local blood donor centre (in Australia) there is a poster in the waiting area where companies/âorgs are listed in order of contributions. Having your group up there will likely help to dispel:
perceptions of vegans as dissident outgroup members (i.e. they can have more traditional and âcommon senseâ values, norms and cares as well).
myths regarding poor health.
(getting even more speculative and not even sure this is a thing) myths that their moral position is based on being overly squeamish rather than rationality.
On the second point, another reason is that myths regarding poor health are not entirely unfounded, and vegans are more likely to have low haemoglobin which is tested prior to donation. Once for me, it was slightly low and I was asked to get another official test before donating again (it was fine in the subsequent test, probably in part to me deliberately upping iron intake including a daily vitamin). They test for other things as wellâinfectious diseases as standard before transfusion, but I believe it could be tested for anything if the blood ends up being used for that purpose (in which case, you would be informed if there is anything to be concerned about, however I suspect this scenario playing out is quite rare)
Nice one George. Some thoughts:
My naĂŻve intuition is that it would be good for many EA orgs to decentralise further and/âor move bases out of expensive areas, due to lower operating costs and I think better optics leading to greater cost-effectiveness. But after considering that many smarter and more knowledgeable people think otherwise, I would be slightly surprised if this intuition was correct (having tried to comprehend everything in a GiveWell model, I can see the benefit in people regularly being in the same room).
Would you agree that location vs value-based is a false dichotomy and they represent two extreme ends of a spectrum? In reality, I understand the majority of companies benchmark using local competitive rates, but this does not have to be the case. My intuition leans towards a norm of using both location and value-based components in deciding salary. This would mean a worker based in San Francisco would be paid more than one in Nairobi, but less relative to local cost of living.
On #5, I think these salaries need to consider averages, not exceptions. Also, I believe it is greater job opportunities that lead to organisations needing to set higher wages.
The example of the Kenyan employee effectively redistributing their disposable income seems a bit idealistic to me. Offering high wages for the region would attract a greater proportion of less-altruistically minded people who would not necessarily redistribute generously and impartially. In addition, GiveDirectly (and other NGOs) have developed their own ideas on how these funds could effectively be used. Even with the individualâs advantage of being in the region, the NGO must view this as an expected cost to their broadly-defined goal of global development. There are likely overall benefits to the NGO in terms of image and employee morale, but (I think) not in the explicit benefits from philanthropic investments made by the individual.
To repeat myself a little. Thanks for the post and perspective. My admittedly uniformed hunch is that it would be great to see more EA-aligned orgs hiring remote workers in less developed and expensive regions. I think ideal remuneration for the positions would involve location and value-based components.
Iâve been informed that in UK, MEDACT is a registered charity doing this work.
They are an affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which is registered charity in the USA.
And NTI is also a registered charity in the USA.
Thanks kind person.
Edit: now see via GWWC that for donations to:
NTI
Council on Strategic Risks â Nuclear weapons policy work
Federation of American Scientists â Nuclear Information Project
citizens of USA, UK and Netherlands can get tax benefits.
On behalf of all fools, I really appreciate the âApril Foolsâ Dayâ tag.
I was wondering this too. If you havenât found out already, submit one per form (after submitting you will be asked if you want to submit another).
Money begets money
Or, and this is a bit more of a slogan:
If you want your money invested wisely, find the person who needs it the most.
I am not working on MAP. That is a project mostly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That post I made a week ago was just intended as a potentially-interesting description, however as I mention there MAP estimates drive both WHO and GBD estimates. I was also surprised to only recently find out about MAP given that role, and their own slick site.
I have acquired some general knowledge about malaria doing volunteer research for SoGive (to whom I am grateful). Outside of that, I am now reading up on the An. stephensi threat to Africa, but I would stop short of calling that a project. If you have a malaria-related question you want answers to that doesnât involve advanced math, there is a reasonable chance I can help.
Strong upvote for the analysis. And a more general congratulations on what you are doing with ODH (even if it doesnât turn out as effective as hoped).
I agree with the biggest weakness identified.
A quick thought (i.e. excuse me if this is stupid) is that you could use the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) pixel data:
to estimate burden at the location of ODH centres and analyse based on expectation of shifting mortality rate* closer to other regions where there are closer health care centers.
A few notes:
MAP does incorporate proximity to health care center in their modelling but I do not know how to download in a format I can use (only see TFF option).
Proximity to health care obviously correlated with urbanisation, which reduces the malaria burden itself, but you can probably largely control for this off incidence or prevalence rates.
Obviously less helpful approach to non-malaria burden, but I think estimations of improvement could be generalised across other health issues.
This modelling (or at least a prior form) is a core contributor to the GBD data.
If you think there is possible merit here, I am happy to discuss.
*can be converted to DALYs, although this might be an issue if we are to consider âlives savedâ in the same way as GiveWell (i.e. not using DALYs). I have not quite got my head around if/âhow this is an issue yet.
Overall, I thought they were well-presented criticisms.
One exception is @34:18 in the video where Abigail quotes Anthony Kalulu that there is âno chanceâ someone in abject poverty will mention an EA-supported charity âas having impacted their lives more than the work of traditional global antipoverty agencies.â
I saw that piece has been discussed on the forum before. My reaction to the statement was the same as the comment made by timunderwood to that forum post (i.e. itâs unlikely they would due to EA-charities having a relatively small budget). And also Sanjay regarding general sceptism to the claim (and others in that piece). I didnât read all comments so others surely shared similar doubts.
My point here though is just that I thought it, and that EAâs leaders âdonât really want to talk about that,â was a particularly poor criticism on Abigailâs part and a let-down on an otherwise good critique/âviewpoint on EA.
Thank you for the research.
I do not necessarily disagree with the limitation that the moral argument watered down the demandingness. However, my intuition was that the framing of the âstrong demandingnessâ condition was particularly likely to result in the expected backfire effect.
I think real-life strongly-demanding arguments are much more likely to use the collective âweâ, acknowledge that this is not socially normal, and acknowledge the incongruence of this obligation with intuitions and psychology. I donât think having this more forgiving/ânuanced framing shifts it into a weaker demandingness . I appreciate that the study is also likely better as it is, but I think this is a limitation.
We canât work on increasing value if we are dead.