Welcome to the first open thread on the Effective Altruism Forum. This is our place to discuss relevant topics that have not appeared in recent posts.
Welcome to the first open thread on the Effective Altruism Forum. This is our place to discuss relevant topics that have not appeared in recent posts.
I'm still fuzzy on the relationship between the EA Facebook group and the EA forum. Are we supposed to move most or all the discussion that was going on in the FB group here? Will the FB be shut down, and if not what will is be used for?
I think the format of the forum will present a higher barrier to low-key discussion than the FB group, e.g. I'd guess people are much less likely to post an EA related new article if they don't have too much to add to it. This is primarily because the forum looks like a blog. Is FB style posting encouraged?
If this has all been described somewhere. Could someone point me toward it?
Also, what's the relationship between the EA forum and the EA hub? http://effectivealtruismhub.com/
What are some examples of things that could have been popular EA causes, but weren't, for reasons that are not completely obvious (and may have to do with historical contingency)?
One example I can think of is anti-aging. This is a cause that has a lot of traction in circles that have overlap with EA circles (rationalist, transhumanist, singularitarian, etc.). However, for whatever reason, it hasn't been identified with EA. If you think anti-aging sounds too outlandish, it's worth noting that with the exception of poverty reduction, the current popular EA cause categories (AI/ex-risk reduction and veganism/animal activism) both seem outlandish.
Another area where EA focus hasn't historically been great, but is gradually increasing, is changing or working around bad policy, in areas such as migration, drug policy, international trade, etc. Lots of economist-types are attracted to EA, so it's interesting that the policy arena has been relatively neglected until recently.
Another example, though not as good, could be effective environmentalism. It's a classic cause among altruists and looks like an x-risk.
I am a committed Christian also committed to the principles of effective altruism. I am very frustrated with the level of apathy in the church, given that we are all called to tithe 10% of our income, like the rest of the population Christians have really lost sight of how rich they are now. I am also frustrated by the focus on differences between religions, and between religion and the non religious, when common values of love and concern for our planet giving how utterly amazing it is we are here should prevail. Altruism is at the heart of Christianity and of course it should be effective. I would be happy to work with other EAs in develop an outreach/link strategy into churches.
My wife is head of fundraising for a charity that is like a mini version of Christian aid - donating to poverty alleviating projects in a Christian context. Making this more effective would be a good place to start.
1 billion Christians should be able to make a real dent in the problems of the world if they focussed less on the coffee rota and more on what our faith actually calls us to do.
Does believing in or identifying as an EA involve a fair amount of hubris and arrogance? To be an EA, and make EA-based decisions, you have to essentially believe that you have some insight into the best way to use resources to make the world a better place. The type of question whose answers EA demands are extremely difficult. When EAs think they have all, or even some, of the answers on how to go about EA, how much arrogance does it reflect? Would something like EA attract overly cocky people?
Legibility is tricky. I want to be able to easily explain my giving, so that when people ask for details on what I mean by "I give half" we don't get into complex arguments about what counts. For example, if my work has a donation matching program, does that count? What if I do work for someone and ask them to donate instead of paying me? What about money my company puts into my 401k? Luckily the US government already has figured out a set of rules for this, so I can use them. When people want details on how I account for things, I can say "income" is "income on form 1040" and "donations" is "gifts to charity on form 1040 Schedule A".
I'd like to see a discussion on thick versus thin EA, similar to the discussions online of thick versus thin libertarianism, such as http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/10/03/libertarianism_through/
Basically, thick EA would involve a wide-ranging set of commitments or organizing one's life around EA ideas, whereas thin EA might mean just accepting the principle that it makes sense to do the most good.
Though there might be competing ways to slice EA into thick and thin.
The EA community seems to have a relatively weak internal support system, relative to other communities of mine (of similar size). I've confirmed this with other EAs. This is in terms of mentorship, providing opportunities for engagement, etc. For example, I think more people participating on this forum strengthens our internal support system! :)
Why is this? And what can we do to improve the situation (if anything)?
[Discount Rates]
I'd like to hear more EA discussion on discount rates. Much of policy analysis involves unilaterally discounting future benefits. For example, an economist might say "Let's value eating one apple today the same as eating four apples ten years from now." The professionals I've spoken with who do this sort of analysis say that discounting is justified because it's a natural part of human decision-making. Psychologically, it's pretty clear that most people make decisions given much greater weight to instant or near-term gratification... (read more)
[Replaceability in Social Change]
When we talk about social change like improving policy or promoting an idea like effective altruism, how do we figure out the counterfactual to measure our impact? Say I'm a civil rights activist in the 1950's and I really want to give a speech titled "I Have a Dream." How would I determine if someone else would do something similar (like MLK actually did in 1963)?
In order words, what social change is inevitable and what is more malleable? In posting this comment, did I just make the idea of "Replaceability i... (read more)
Most EA giving advice is directed at people in the developed world, where purchasing power parity differences make their money go farther overseas than it would at home. For a person who's equally wealthy in PPP terms but lives in a country where prices are lower (such as India), so that the person doesn't have that much money when viewed at the international exchange rate, how does the calculus of giving change?
As part of the pros/cons between "give now" and "invest now, give later", has there been any investigation into how much good is accomplished by investing itself? It seems like that is a (small) part of economic growth and innovation, so I'm curious if there's much reason to think that has a big enough impact to include in the invest-then-give decision.
I'd like to see more work done on "warm fuzzies," e.g.: How can our charitable organizations be competitive with non-EA charities in producing positive feelings in donors? How can our message be framed such that they don't lead to feelings of guilt or a sense of being overwhelmed by the scope of the problems we're trying to tackle?
That Effective Altruists, implicitly if not explicitly, nearly always assume a single moral epistemology: some version of utilitarianism. It is only one of very many plausible registers of human value, whose prominence in the Anglophone academy has long waned post-Rawls (nevermind on the continent). I find the fact that this is a silent unanimity, tacit but never raised to the level of explicit discussion, doubly problematic.
I say this as someone who completely rejects utilitarianism, but recognises the obvious and ecumenical value in gauging high-utility ... (read more)
Please reply with a description of Effective Altruism that you think optimizes for, in priority, conciseness, likelihood of compelling the reader to learn more, and comprehensiveness.
After we get a sufficient number, I'll repost them all at the same time as a poll.
This Forum May Offer Better, Newer Formats For Interviews
An initial interview with one effective altruist lets the rest of us know what that one person is up to. However, for individuals working on particularly deep and interesting projects, I want to know more than just what they're doing. I want to know why, and how. For example: I might want to know more about what Brian Tomasik is doing with the Foundational Research Institute, or what Owen Cotton-Barrat is doing with the Global Priorities Project. That might require a second interview, or one that int... (read more)
Over at LessWrong, user "mushroom" recently proposed a debiasing heuristic for dealing with unpopular ideas. In sum, his claim is that we should be extra charitable to such ideas because they are disproportionately more likely to be promoted by its most extreme, disagreeable or crazy adherents. In a comment, I wrote:
... (read more)Your analysis has implications not only for individuals exposed to unpopular ideas, but also for movements promoting such ideas. These movements (e.g., effective altruism) should be particularly worried about their ideas being repre
What are the implications of Robin Hanson's idea of being a charity angel for effective altruism(more details on charity angels here)? For the purposes of answering this question, don't limit yourself to thinking about being a charity angel to only intellectuals, as Robin Hanson primed for discussion in his original post. Please think broadly about what being a charity angel could be for whatever effective altruistic endeavor you might have in mind, and whether it would be worthwhile.
I believe the most relevant previous thought is one concern raised by Hol... (read more)
In this thread, you try to argue as well as you can against the cause you currently consider the highest expected value cause to be working on. Then you calibrate your emotions given the new evidence you just generated. This is not just a fun exercise. It has been shown that if you want to get the moral intuitions of a person to change, the best way to do so is to cause the person to scrutinize in detail the policy they are in favor of, not show evidence for why other policies are a good idea or why the person is wrong. To get your mind to change, the best way is to give it a zooming lens into itself. So what is your cause?
Spreading EA to non-First World nations to take advantage of people's preference for helping their own country. Lots of both rich and poor in BRICS these days.
Spreading EA to institutions and governments. I know CEA advised the UK government but I haven't heard much about other governments or corporate giving (although I realize that only about 5% of donations come from business, with most of the rest being from individuals). Although I realize a critical mass of individuals probably needs to be reach before institutions start to change.
Spreading altr
What are the best books related to altruism that you have seen? Which books mostly influenced your thinking as an EA?
One of the concepts that is currently gaining more traction among EA's is that of Crucial Considerations.
Which considerations do you think will be more crucial for us to get right in the next ten years in order to produce a massively better world?
When will the results of the EA survey be released? They survey was underweigh in early may, and it's now late September. I realize there were many problems with the survey (Gregory Lewis pointed out some pretty convincing ones), but a lot of EAs spent a lot of time filling it out, so we should at least get the raw data (of those who agreed to let their data be public) and summary stats.
I would like to see a visual and possibly interactive map of all organizations and projects related to Effective Altruism, and their relationships including hierarchy, funding, room for funding, members, potential scale/scope of impact with some general metric, etc (suggest other useful attributes, and links to similar maps).
Would this project be worth the investment?
EDIT: By map I mean something like a mind map, not geographical.
Can anyone think of a way effective altruists, as a group, or as individuals, can playtest (their own) different approaches to spreading effective altruism, whether among the people they know personally, or to the public at large? Also, how could any of us go about about assessing and comparing the impact of such a thing? Is there an experimental design in this we could set up?
I'd like to propose a web application targeted specifically to donors that captures recurring payments for an EA meta-charity and helps them manage the donation:
Let the donor easily view sum total donations over time, view some simple budgeting, tweak their commitment, manage their payment method, and do tax accounting/reporting.
I think this movement should have a
[I rearranged this to put the last paragraph first, because it gives the most concise and direct attention to my point of concern]
Let me put the question of tactics, with simplification, this way: insofar as you admit that optimising units of consequences is a subset of the panoply of moral obligations one faces, two things appear true. (i) externally, an organisation claiming merely to evaluate the best means of increasing valuable units of consequence per donation appears unproblematic; it facilitates your meeting of part of your moral obligations; (ii) an organisation internally operating, across its management, personnel and dissemination, with the sole goal of maximising valuable units of consequence per available resource, excludes the full range of the human values you recognise. Note that something similar holds for the internal composition of the movement. That is to say, while the movement might outwardly facilitate value pluralism, internally in organisation and composition, it abides by an almost singular logic. That can be extremely alienating for someone who doesn't share that world-view, like myself.
I don't encounter it as sinister in the slightest. I feel respondents are running away with the possible allusions or intended implications of my post. The EA community is seething with a very particular and on the whole homogeneous identity, a caricature of which might be drawn thus: a rigorous concern with instrumental rationality, with conforming available techniques and resources with given ends; an associated, marked favouring of analytically tractable meads/ends; and an unsophisticated intuitionistic or simply assumed utilitarianism, augmented in a complementary naturalistic world-view.
There is a whole lot to value there, exemplified well enough in the movement's results. I do find two things alienating, however: the rationalization of the whole human experience, such that one is merely a teleological vessel to the satisfaction of the obvious and absolute good of benefits over costs (which for at least the few 'professional' members of the movement I have encountered, sits squarely alongside neoclassical economic orthodoxy); and the failure to ever talk about or admit human values other than the preferred unit of consequence.
I should stress immediately, contrary to the sentiment of your (generous) reply, these are largely experiences of individuals. I occasionally find that it contaminates analysis itself: such as in inter-generational comparisons (i.e. FHI's straight-faced contemplation of the value of totalitarianism in guarding against xrisk), or tactical questions of how to best disseminate EA (i.e. again, in caricature: 'say and do whatever most favourably brings about the desired reaction'). But for the most part, it does not make donor-relevant analysis problematic for me.
I want to say two things then: (i) that I find something problematic in an absolutising rationalization without great reflection; with being highly adept in means, without giving pause to properly consider ends. (ii) with the dominance this tendency has internal to the movement. (i) is a question of personal world-view adequacy, (ii) is one of organisational adequacy. Obviously I don't expect those affirming (i) or its cognates to agree, but I do think (ii) has significance regardless of whether one observes or rejects it. Namely, for the idea, suggested in this thread, that the movement can both present itself as only attempting to satisfy an important subset of possible moral values, while being internally monological. You might readily accept this, but it is consequential for the limits of the movement's membership at least.
*to repeat thrice for want to avoid misunderstanding and too heavy a flurry of down-votes, I readily admit that the study of maximising favoured consequences is of ecumenical interest, and is sufficient in itself to warrant its organisational study.
I partially agree here. The parts that I find easiest to agree with relate to exclusion of none utilitarians. I think it's important that people who are not utilitarian can enter effective altruist circles and participate in discussions. I think it also might be good for effective altruists to pull back from their utilitarian frame of analysis and take a more global view of how their proposals (e.g. totalitarianism as a reducer of x-risk) might be perceived from a broader value system, if for no reason other than ensuring their research remainsbof wider so... (read more)