Had a look at the form. Need to discuss with the family but this is looking like it asks all the right questions. Simply from a convenience perspective I’m not aware of anywhere you can get an effective legal will so easily—very nice work!!
tomstocker
Those quotes aren’t real quotes right? I recognize the offensive one about ‘autistic white nerds’ from a wierd article by one of the Vox founders but I would have bet against much of the others being said by someone?
See recent pain control brief lee sharkey as example, or Auren Forrester’s stuff on suicide.
Saudi prince declared he’ll give $32bn. looks like a big opportunity
I’m really happy to see this article—I mentioned it to givewell a while ago but they weren’t interested. For me this hits what I see as the moral priority more than a lot of the other projects and options on the go.
Simple, complex and neuropathic pains respond differently to different anaelgasics. Opioids v effective for simple pain over the short term, e.g. surgeries, broken bones etc. Neuropathic and complex pain don’t have good equivalents for pain relief and patients are stuck with cannabinoids, anti-epileptics and anti-depressants (or, ketamine, ironically, if it wasn’t so restricted in the developed world for its noted impact on organ function).
Not a reason not to back access to opioids in the developing world.
Least well explored part IMO is the impact of pain control on the nature of medicine and doctor-patient interaction etc. because the west may have fallen into a trap that it may be a shame to hasten in the developing world.
Yep. Would also be keep on the more comprehensive one 😊 well done though
Thanks MIchelle, great to hear about your continuing fantastic work!
“In research, our comparative advantage continues to be identifying crucial considerations”
feels a little tautological/vague to me. Is there a particular interpretation of crucial considerations you were going for? Am I reading it right in thinking that you’re key contribution here is challenging givewell’s methods and joining the dots a bit more?
I’d kill these sentences “Deciding what to do and where to give to have the biggest impact is not easy. But we think the best answers come from being open to new evidence and part of a community of likeminded individuals asking the same questions.”
don’t know why like minded is valued.
Also, your definition is too loose—literally millions of people have done this that will never identify as effective altruists. It might better differentiate if you said that an EA also identified with a community of people trying to evangelise the above 1 and 2 primarily through that community. But that isn’t as positive a descriptor.
How do you think about the information hazard of publishing your results (that they’ll become the new chugger method for less effective orgs) against the benefits of making them publicly available?
Also, generally, having more EAs in different areas of the labour market appears on the face of it very useful as long as they are in collaborative communication with the rest of the community. A larger skill set and set of perspectives to draw on. More communal learning value. Better ability to spot opportunitites. Wider networks. What do you think of this perspective Ben?
Sounds reasonable—and if successful will come back to a funding constraint.
You want to put your most expensive resource at the bottle-neck as an efficiency heuristic.
Do people think the bottle neck is ideas, execution, or funding—or the infrastructure needed to facilitate one or more of those?
It seems a shame that such intelligent and amazing people in the EA movement are, on the whole, putting their most productive and creative years (25-35?) into EtG rather than building and delivering practical solutions to improve the world in the best way possible outside of AI/Xrisk and movement building—as I think there is a lot of learning value from this kind of thing!
EA groups specialised around key promising interests such as healthcare, AI, governance, animal welfare, poverty and development etc. that can learn together, network efficiently, keep track of projects, prioritise collective resources etc. might be a way forward. AI/X-risk and perhaps animal welfare appears from the outside to be more developed along these lines than the others? What are people’s thoughts?
This is a fantastic idea Hauke, nice one! I also like they way you’ve set out the objective and rationale clearly. Thanks!
The primary objective is to engage students right rather than get ideas?
Social policy, economics, epidemiology and public health DPhils / masters people might also be really good for this if you can get the mailing lists etc. (could that be tacked on to Tyler’s task for nearly EA group contact details at universities?)
Again, wonderful idea and all the best!
I’d be interested to get WIll Crouch or Toby Ord’s views on this—they both persuaded me to go from a floundering altruist concerned about making a difference to someone that thinks broadly and comparatively about how to make the most difference. They both did it pretty quickly—i.e. 10 minutes of conversation. They did it without reference to the work they were doing but with reference to the decisions and issues I was bringing up myself. They didn’t ever once use the words ‘effective altruism’.
The success of this approach ties in well with sales theory: question first talk later. Tailor your message etc. etc.
And from what I’ve seen of evangelism in christianity, you always start with someone’s problems / where they’re at. Then you demonstrate how they could be solved. Let it stew for a bit, then, for some ofthe less sublte forms, create some amazing social / emotional experience.
Having said all this, I’ve been useless at persuading people. I think I get too excited and fail to listen deeply enough. People close to me have been receptive over a long period of time. I think you need to have some solid background altruism to start with if you’re going to be convinced?
I wonder if its worth thinking about reaching out to 40+ people re: effective giving? Anyone tried this seriously?
Think you’ve covered this really well.
I think it would be interesting to target groups of people that might have other reasons to be EA than because it’s rational, and see what happens. Religious groups with an effectiveness/altruistic bent, and people that you might think are looking for meaning in their lives might be a good start?
EBA? (Evidence based altruistim—no identifier as it’s aspirational as mentioned)Like EBM..while this.particular suggestion may be poor, I’d like to try and see if there’s a word that puts humility at the heart of it. I think it will be appealing and accurate- rationality, evidence and caring about other people as much as yourself all have roots in humility? I find EA difficult, as it defines others as either stupid or selfish and sounds exclusive and.elitist to non academic types, and think under promising with overdelivery has many benefits. It draws a parallel with evidence based movements, which seek to overturn people’s God complex and over riding belief in ad hoc.guesswork, shower inspiration, social proofing, and emotional intuition, as well as the motivational vices that lead there?
Id be interested in long run future and things focused more directly on human wellbeing than generic health and income. Id also be more interested if these groups not only updated on orgs we all know about but also did / collated exploratory work on speculative opportunities.
Ben, I’m impressed—thank you for sharing and wish you continued success with the business despite the changing political environment.
I think they’re consistent with a Kantian perspective. Also, a risk averse consequentialist. Also, someone that likes to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions in a like for like manner for ethical-aesthetic reasons.
This is helpful. Might be worth defining EA as a movement that realises premises 1, 2, 3 are partially true, and that even if there are small differences on each, it is worth being really careful and deliberate about what we do and how much.
There was also something attractive to me as a young person many moons ago about Toby Ord & Will Mackaskill’s other early message—which is perhaps a bit more general / not specific to EA—that there are some really good opportunities to promote the common good out there, and they are worth pursuing (perhaps this is the moral element that you’re trying to abstract from?).