TylerMaule

Karma: 772

TylerMaule Feb 5, 2022, 6:26 AM
6 points
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in reply to: MichaelPlant’s comment on: Future-proof ethics
I didn’t read the goal here as literally to score points with future people, though I agree that the post is phrased such that it is implied that future ethical views will be superior.
Rather, I think the aim is to construct a framework that can be applied consistently across time—avoiding the pitfalls of common-sense morality both past and future.
In other words, this could alternatively be framed as ‘backtesting ethics’ or something, but ‘future-proofing’ speaks to (a) concern about repeating past mistakes (b) personal regret in future.

TylerMaule Jan 2, 2022, 11:39 PM
8 points
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in reply to: Marcel D’s comment on: doing more good vs. doing the most good possible
I was especially interested in a point/thread you mentioned about people perceiving many charities as having similar effectiveness and that this may be an impediment to people getting interested in effective altruism
See here
A recent survey of Oxford students found that they believed the most effective global health charity was only ~1.5x better than the average — in line with what the average American thinks — while EAs and global health experts estimated the ratio is ~100x. This suggests that even among Oxford students, where a lot of outreach has been done, the most central message of EA is not yet widely known.

TylerMaule Dec 4, 2021, 4:13 PM
7 points
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on: Has anything in the EA global health sphere changed since the critiques of “randomista development” 1-2 years ago?
1. As Jackson points out, those willing to go the ‘high uncertainty/high upside’ route tend to favor far future or animal welfare causes. Even if we think these folks should consider more medium-term causes, comparing cost-effectiveness to GiveWell top charities may be inapposite.
2. It seems like there is support for hits-based policy interventions in general, and Open Phil has funded at least some of this.
3. The case for growth was based on historical success of pro-growth policy. Not only is this now less neglected, but much of the low-hanging fruit has been taken.

TylerMaule Dec 2, 2021, 4:21 AM
6 points
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on: The Explanatory Obstacle of EA
Thanks for this—I have often wished I had a better elevator pitch for EA.
One thing I might add is some mention of just how wide the disparity can be amongst possible interventions, since this seems to be one of the most overlooked key ideas.

TylerMaule Nov 23, 2021, 9:31 PM
7 points
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in reply to: NunoSempere’s comment on: Despite billions of extra funding, small donors can still have a significant impact
I believe both this post and Ben’s original ‘Funding Overhang’ post mentioned that this is an update towards a career with direct impact vs earning-to-give.

But earning-to-give is still very high impact in absolute terms.

TylerMaule Nov 23, 2021, 2:09 PM
16 points
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on: Despite billions of extra funding, small donors can still have a significant impact
Thanks for writing; I too have worried that many folks got the wrong impression here.

TylerMaule Nov 15, 2021, 3:25 AM
7 points
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on: Thoughts on an EA bond fund?
I do think that more generally there is an inefficiency with so many EAs independently sinking time into investment management. I don’t think that the answer is safe/passive/crowdsourcing, though.
Instead, I think what might be valuable is some sort of ‘EA Mutual Funds’—a menu of investment profiles, each tied to a fund/manager. Possible value-add:
1. Consolidation of labor to fund manager (research, tax planning)
2. Access to leverage/accreditation
3. Save fees vs using a DAF

TylerMaule Nov 1, 2021, 9:57 PM
4 points
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on: Make a $100 donation into $200 (or more)
Anyone know where the $250k is coming from? This is all I could find:
Matching funds are provided by generous donors who contribute to help amplify grassroots giving

TylerMaule Oct 29, 2021, 4:36 PM
2 points
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on: EA Survey 2020 Series: Donation Data
Is there any consideration for Investing-to-Give in the survey?
1. Is contributing to a DAF meant to count as a ‘donation’? I would think yes, though not all I2G is done via DAF
2. According to this post, many in the community think deploying <5% of available capital/yr is currently optimal
Perhaps it could be interesting to ask for both ‘amount donated’ and ‘amount earmarked for donation’?

TylerMaule Oct 17, 2021, 3:38 PM
9 points
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in reply to: AppliedDivinityStudies’s comment on: An update in favor of trying to make tens of billions of dollars
Depends immensely on if you think there are EAs who could start billion-dollar companies, but would not be able to without EA funding. I.e. they’re great founders, but can’t raise money from VCs.
I think the core argument here is that not enough EAs try to start a company, as opposed to try and are rejected by VCs. IMO the point of seeding would be to take more swings.
Also, presumably the bar should be lower for an EA VC, because much of the founders’ stake will also go to effective charity.

TylerMaule Oct 16, 2021, 7:03 PM
5 points
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on: An update in favor of trying to make tens of billions of dollars
Would it not make sense to start some sort of ‘EA Venture Capital’ firm?
Surely more EAs would take this leap if provided with some runway/salary (in exchange for equity, which by this logic would be a phenomenal investment for patient philanthropy money)

TylerMaule Sep 23, 2021, 10:57 PM
3 points
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on: What should “counterfactual donation” mean?
I think I agree that only the last two should qualify, but presently I would assume a weaker definition is most common.

I suppose this can create a bad incentive where someone offering a counterfactual donation then has to make sure to do something not charitable with that money later on? I guess in my view a ‘counterfactual donation’ really only ever makes sense when you have a strong prior the money would not otherwise be put to similar use.

TylerMaule Sep 20, 2021, 4:06 AM
2 points
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on: EffectiveAltruismData.com: A Website for Aggregating and Visualising EA Data
This is very cool! I share your view that comprehensive data is an important part of my personal e2g decision-making (and can be difficult to find).
If you haven’t seen it already, this recent post by Ben Todd is probably the best source I know of as far as resource allocation.
- Make a line plot of cumulative grants from Open Philanthropy (for each focus area individually and in total).
- Do all the same plots I have for Open Philanthropy for EA Funds as well.
I made a rough attempt to this effect earlier this year (there you can also find a link to the source code).

TylerMaule Aug 30, 2021, 2:31 PM
1 point
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in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Is effective altruism growing? An update on the stock of funding vs. people
That all seems reasonable.
Shouldn’t the displacement value be a factor though? This might be wrong, but my thinking is (a) the replacement person in the $1M job will on average give little or nothing to effective charity (b) the switcher has no prior experience or expertise in non-profit, so presumably the next-best hire there is only marginally worse?

TylerMaule Aug 25, 2021, 11:51 PM
1 point
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in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Is effective altruism growing? An update on the stock of funding vs. people
In reality I don’t think we’d want to go that close to the breakeven point—because there may be better uses of money, due to the reputation costs of unusually high salaries, and because salaries are harder to lower than to raise (and so if uncertain, it’s better to undershoot).
Good points, I agree it would be better to undershoot.
Still, even with the pessimistic assumptions, the high end of that $0.4-4M range seems quite unlikely.
Does 80k actually advise people making >$1M to quit their jobs in favor of entry-level EA work? If so, that would be a major update to my thinking.

TylerMaule Aug 22, 2021, 2:54 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Is effective altruism growing? An update on the stock of funding vs. people
Agreed, just a function of how many salaries you assume will have to be doubled alongside to fill that one position

(a) Hopefully, doubling ten salaries to fill one is not a realistic model. Each incremental wage increase should expand the pool of available labor. If the EA movement is labor-constrained, I expect a more modest raise would cause supply to meet demand.

(b) Otherwise, we should consider that the organization was paying only half of market salary, which perhaps inflated their ‘effectiveness’ in the first place. Taking half of your market pay is itself an altruistic act, which is not counted towards the org’s costs. Presumably if these folks chose that pay cut, they would also choose to donate much of their excess salary (whether pay raise from this org, or taking a for-profit gig).

TylerMaule Aug 17, 2021, 1:22 PM
5 points
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in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Is effective altruism growing? An update on the stock of funding vs. people
Doubling costs to get +10% labour doesn’t seem like a great deal
I agree in principal, but in this case the alternative is eliminating$400k-4M of funding, which is much more expensive than doubling the salary of e.g. a research assistant.
To be clear, I am more so skeptical of this valuation than I am actually suggesting doubling salaries. But conditional on the fact that one engaged donor entering the non-profit labor force is worth >$400k, seems like the right call.

TylerMaule Aug 17, 2021, 3:03 AM
20 points
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on: Is effective altruism growing? An update on the stock of funding vs. people
For each person in a leadership role, there’s typically a need for at least several people in the more junior versions of these roles or supporting positions — e.g. research assistants, operations specialists, marketers, ML engineers,...I’d typically prefer someone in these roles to an additional person donating $400,000–$4 million per year
If this is true, why not spend way more on recruiting and wages? It’s surprising to me that the upper bound could be so much larger than equivalent salary in the for-profit sector.
I might be missing something, but it seems to me the basic implication of the funding overhang is that EA should convert more of its money into ‘talent’ (via Meta spending or just paying more).
What links here?
- TylerMaule's comment on Increasing Demandingness in EA by Jeff Kaufman 🔸 (Apr 29, 2022, 11:19 PM; 8 points)

TylerMaule Aug 11, 2021, 3:15 AM
3 points
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on: How are resources in EA allocated across issues?
Thanks for writing, and I agree it would be great to see more like this in future.
It does seem like ‘ideal portfolio of resources’ vs ‘ideal split of funds donated this year’ can be quite a bit different—perhaps a question for next time?
(see here for some similar funding estimates)

TylerMaule Apr 20, 2021, 11:34 AM
2 points
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in reply to: Neel Nanda’s comment on: Cash Transfers as a Simple First Argument
Thanks for sharing! I like the way you phrased it in the interview, I think that’s a nice way to start.