Scott Smith

• Scott Smith 6 Jul 2021 15:50 UTC

  13 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: The most suc­cess­ful EA pod­cast of all time: Sam Har­ris and Will MacAskill (2020)

  “My understanding (though I could be wrong) is that this discussion was set up to be broken into a series of mini-lessons for users of the Waking Up app.” ← I can confirm this is correct.

  The first episode came out August 2016. This is highly speculative, but could the Trump 2016 successful campaign have played a role in the impact of this episode?

  I wouldn’t suggest this, however this first episode influenced me heavily with donations and enthusiasm for EA. I had decided prior to listening, I ought to donate more of my wealth to charity and was pretty firm on the idea. This was likely due to a couple of reasons, but Trump’s popularity was definitely one of them. The strong nationalism and disregard for decency (in my opinion) conflicted with my moral views. Maybe I wasn’t that unique and a lot of people with similar globalised moral inclinations were “triggered” or encouraged by this environment to reflect more on their beliefs.

  I found the episode via googling something along the lines of “effective charities” (November/​December, 2016), and it would have been one of the top links (on first few pages). I’m not sure if I had ever listened to a Sam Harris podcast before, but would have recognised the name as someone I respected from my early adult “anti-religion” phase.

  Sorry if that is self-indulgent over sharing, but it might just be relevant that the first episode came out at a fairly convenient time?

  I do think that the possible factors in the article, as well as “fit with audience” mentioned by Ben Todd and others are stronger factors.

• Scott Smith 8 Jul 2021 13:26 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Aaron Gertler’s comment on: In­spiring oth­ers to do good

  It appears there are two “giving rules” that cover “standard” donations. They call them “Monthly Giving” and “Giving Now”.

  I love the idea behind Momentum with these rules. Such as donating set amounts when you buy drinks or dine out (something I thought of doing for myself manually). Not sure how it works however and can’t see it being an automatic process—would have thought your linked bank account cannot categorise your spending like this for the purpose of automatic separate donation contributions. I tried to set up an account myself to test it out, but appears it is for United States only, which likely highlights a gap to be filled.

  By sacrificing some automation and having the cause area to be user-defined but specific charity options limited, it seems likely to be able to create a more globalised product. Due to this, and the publicising angle, I think Laurin’s project has promise.

• Scott Smith 21 Jan 2022 2:49 UTC

  10 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Frederik’s comment on: FLI launches Wor­ld­build­ing Con­test with $100,000 in prizes

  I think it is quite relevant.

  However, if FLI are publishing a group of these possible worlds, maybe they want to consider outsourcing the media piece to someone else. It:

  a) links/​brands the stories together (like how in a book of related short stories, a single illustrator is likely used)

  b) makes it easier for lone EAs to contribute using the skill that is more common in the community.

• Scott Smith 1 Jun 2022 23:20 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: On be­ing am­bi­tious: failing suc­cess­fully & less unnecessarily

  Thanks Luke. With regards to “better awareness” (#11). Competition is good and so people working on nearly the exact same thing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Ideally, there are identifiable differences so that we can learn from them. I take your concern as being, probably rightfully so, these groups working on things without knowing of similar ongoing/​completed attempts.

  Would you propose collaborated record keeping between funders and entrepreneurs of ongoing and completed projects, with their potential points of failure? Including, why funding was not approved.

  I also really like the criticism of the “EA is overfunded” meme. I think emphasising the good that can arise from the donations by the global 1% remains an important part of EA, and saying that “EA is overfunded” is contradictory to this.

• Scott Smith 25 Jun 2022 6:47 UTC

  11 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Save the date: EAGxVir­tual 2022

  Great one. This has probably been considered by people with experience and decided against, and I am not confident with this thought, but to share it anyway...

  Having to apply, and having to commit to everything, might put some people off. Due to fear of rejection, self-consciousness of their abilities/​experience, shyness, or otherwise being uninterested in all components of the conference.

  I can imagine it being beneficial and a good opportunity (being virtual) to have an open invitation for joining any of the talks or Q&A sessions (I presume there will already be moderators screening questions). Obviously, the suggestion of having digested certain information prior to joining any of the live talks could easily remain (and this could be specific to each talk).

  Separately, require an application for workshops, office hours with experts, and facilitated networking.

• Scott Smith 20 Nov 2022 6:30 UTC

  8 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: JoelMcGuire’s comment on: The elephant in the bed­net: the im­por­tance of philos­o­phy when choos­ing be­tween ex­tend­ing and im­prov­ing lives

  Thanks HLI. I really like the post.

  Pointing out an issue with the links to sheets that are referenced. Remove everything after ”/​edit” to make them work (as per below), and the latter one regardless is not publicly accessible:

  https://​​docs.google.com/​​spreadsheets/​​d/​​1NMAU-a1X4vqjodjI6kf8KnUyCJaK9uyNvXWj5VetDZw

  https://​​docs.google.com/​​spreadsheets/​​d/​​1RrBuiPVgL-t8hlr6EqkqABiaqdHMGkpvfeiqiiX49LU

  ---

  Regarding the content, as explained in Joel’s comment above the immediate expected replacement effects are not included, and if they were to be you need to ask why stop after the first generation. Is there a legitimate argument however to count the first generation and stop there? Because:

  • first generation replacement effect is relevant immediately, or at least within the next few years. Second generation is relevant in ~20 years, when the state of the world is much less predictable. Hopefully subjective wellbeing of people in these regions will be noticeably better in 20 years, and any replacement effect/​rate might also be noticeably different.

  • it is similar in immediacy and measurability (I think) to developmental, morbidity and grievance impacts that are included.

  Thanks.

• Scott Smith 1 Feb 2023 13:05 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: What I thought about child mar­riage as a cause area, and how I’ve changed my mind

  This was a really neat write up. As someone trying to do research myself (without much experience) I found it useful and I might take you up on the offer to help one day.

  My intuition is that addressing the harms themselves is a more effective approach (i.e. violence and ceased education), but it is just an intuition.

  There is a typo here: “The adjusted risk ratio was 0.09 (81% decreased chance)...” should be 91% - an effect size that would be amazing if true, but does seem unlikely unfortunately.

• Scott Smith 21 Feb 2023 22:36 UTC

  5 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  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 “strong demandingness” 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 “we”, acknowledge that this is not socially normal, and acknowledge the incongruence of this obligation with intuitions and psychology. I don’t think having this more forgiving/​nuanced 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.

How WHO es­ti­mate malaria cases and mortality

• Scott Smith 25 Feb 2023 0:40 UTC

  11 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Video on Effec­tive Altru­ism by pop­u­lar youtu­ber Philos­o­phy Tube

  Overall, I thought they were well-presented criticisms.

  One exception is @34:18 in the video where Abigail quotes Anthony Kalulu that there is “no chance” someone in abject poverty will mention an EA-supported charity “as having impacted their lives more than the work of traditional global antipoverty agencies.”

  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. it’s 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 didn’t read all comments so others surely shared similar doubts.

  My point here though is just that I thought it, and that EA’s leaders “don’t really want to talk about that,” was a particularly poor criticism on Abigail’s part and a let-down on an otherwise good critique/​viewpoint on EA.

• Scott Smith 27 Feb 2023 22:18 UTC

  5 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Re­mote Health Cen­ters In Uganda—a cost effec­tive in­ter­ven­tion?

  Strong upvote for the analysis. And a more general congratulations on what you are doing with ODH (even if it doesn’t 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 “lives saved” in the same way as GiveWell (i.e. not using DALYs). I have not quite got my head around if/​how this is an issue yet.

• Scott Smith 28 Feb 2023 6:16 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Re­mote Health Cen­ters In Uganda—a cost effec­tive in­ter­ven­tion?

  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 doesn’t involve advanced math, there is a reasonable chance I can help.

• Scott Smith 1 Mar 2023 6:46 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Help GiveDirectly kill “teach a man to fish”

  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.

• Scott Smith 1 Mar 2023 6:52 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: justaperson’s comment on: Help GiveDirectly kill “teach a man to fish”

  I was wondering this too. If you haven’t found out already, submit one per form (after submitting you will be asked if you want to submit another).

• Scott Smith 4 Apr 2023 1:39 UTC

  6 points

  5 ∶ 0

  on: It’s “The EA-Ad­ja­cent Fo­rum” now

  On behalf of all fools, I really appreciate the “April Fools’ Day” tag.

[Question] Are you able to claim tax benefits from dona­tions to ICAN (or similar nu­clear abol­ish­ment or­gani­sa­tions)?

• Scott Smith 16 Jun 2023 3:47 UTC

  5 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Why value-based salaries might help Afri­can effec­tive al­tru­ists achieve more impact

  Nice one George. Some thoughts:

  • My naïve intuition is that it would be good for many EA orgs to decentralise further and/​or 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 individual’s 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.

• Scott Smith 5 Sep 2023 11:34 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Scott Smith’s Quick takes

  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/​orgs 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 “common sense” 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 well—infectious 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)

• Scott Smith 24 Sep 2023 7:31 UTC

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Patrick Liu’s comment on: How WHO es­ti­mate malaria cases and mortality

  Hello Patrick.

  For WHO estimates of case incidence and deaths since 2000 (as of 2022 report), go here, click on “Annexes in Excel Format” 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 − 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.

• Scott Smith 20 Nov 2023 12:02 UTC

  27 points

  7 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Seth Ariel Green’s comment on: Open Phil Should Allo­cate Most Neart­er­mist Fund­ing to An­i­mal Welfare

  Also worry about the weirdness. Ariel said themselves:

  When I started as an EA, I found other EAs’ 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 isn’t necessarily a reason to shy away. Being disingenuous about our personal priorities to seem more mainstream seems wrong—like 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/​agnostic, but maybe we (speaking as individuals) need to be careful that is genuine epistemological humility and not an act.