What else could the “as a cause” in “socialist firms as a cause area” possibly mean, except “as an EA cause”? The title wouldn’t make sense if it just meant “as a cause, but not as any particular kind of cause”, and the only particular type of cause being discussed is EA.
I also don’t think that “alleviating misery” in this context can mean anything other than “alleviating misery, because you are EAs and EAs want to get rid of misery”.
I agree that “cause” here means “thing people trying to improve the world might want to consider putting time, money and/or effort into”. I don’t think it means “thing that is likely to be better in good done per dollar used than GiveWell’s top recommendations”.
If I wanted to spend money on making more firms be co-ops, I don’t even know how I’d do it. It doesn’t look to me as if the goal of this post is to recommend spending money on making more firms be co-ops.
My reading of the “conclusions and policies” section of the post is than Ben is saying two things: 1. It would be nice if there were more co-ops. 2. EA organizations might want to consider co-op structures.
I don’t think #1 is intended to say ”… and therefore EAs should be sending their charitable donations to organizations lobbying for there to be more co-ops”; I think it’s just a wouldn’t-it-be-nice-if. I think #2 is intended to suggest something EAs might want to do, but if Ben’s right then doing it wouldn’t compete with other things they do but would help those things. (I have no strong opinion on whether Ben is, in fact, right about this.)
Now, to be clear, I am not Ben and I don’t speak for him. Maybe he did mean more than that; maybe he does think that people wanting to give to EA causes should be sending some of their money to organizations doing co-op advocacy or something of the sort. If so, I agree that that’s unlikely to be as effective in good-done-per-dollar than, say, antimalarial bednets.
So if he didn’t mean that, was ”… as a cause” a bad choice of phrasing, as Tenoke says? Not necessarily. I think the diagnosis at the end of Tenoke’s comment is probably right: people get into EA, want to do things as well as giving money, and come up with other things to do. But Tenoke evidently thinks that’s clearly bad; I don’t. Effort isn’t fungible in quite the way money is. If Ben is more excited by co-ops than by bednets, his donations should probably still go to bednets[1], but his time might be more effectively spent on co-ops because people are much more effective doing things they’re excited by. (And because no one is required to spend all their time on maximally-efficient charitable things.)
[1] I don’t mean necessarily literal bednets, of course; that’s shorthand for “plausibly near-maximally efficient charitable causes” and there’s plenty of scope for disagreement about what those are.
I’m not sure Tenoke’s wrong about “as a cause” being misleading here. I stand by what I originally said about those words not implying or suggesting that co-ops are most effective per dollar. But maybe using those words has funky subconscious effects similar to suggesting that, even if no one would claim that co-ops are most effective per dollar if asked explicitly, or maybe it attracts the eye of EAs in a way it doesn’t deserve to, or something. But Tenoke’s apparent indignation at those words seems way over the top to me.
What else could the “as a cause” in “socialist firms as a cause area” possibly mean, except “as an EA cause”? The title wouldn’t make sense if it just meant “as a cause, but not as any particular kind of cause”, and the only particular type of cause being discussed is EA.
I also don’t think that “alleviating misery” in this context can mean anything other than “alleviating misery, because you are EAs and EAs want to get rid of misery”.
I agree that “cause” here means “thing people trying to improve the world might want to consider putting time, money and/or effort into”. I don’t think it means “thing that is likely to be better in good done per dollar used than GiveWell’s top recommendations”.
If I wanted to spend money on making more firms be co-ops, I don’t even know how I’d do it. It doesn’t look to me as if the goal of this post is to recommend spending money on making more firms be co-ops.
My reading of the “conclusions and policies” section of the post is than Ben is saying two things: 1. It would be nice if there were more co-ops. 2. EA organizations might want to consider co-op structures.
I don’t think #1 is intended to say ”… and therefore EAs should be sending their charitable donations to organizations lobbying for there to be more co-ops”; I think it’s just a wouldn’t-it-be-nice-if. I think #2 is intended to suggest something EAs might want to do, but if Ben’s right then doing it wouldn’t compete with other things they do but would help those things. (I have no strong opinion on whether Ben is, in fact, right about this.)
Now, to be clear, I am not Ben and I don’t speak for him. Maybe he did mean more than that; maybe he does think that people wanting to give to EA causes should be sending some of their money to organizations doing co-op advocacy or something of the sort. If so, I agree that that’s unlikely to be as effective in good-done-per-dollar than, say, antimalarial bednets.
So if he didn’t mean that, was ”… as a cause” a bad choice of phrasing, as Tenoke says? Not necessarily. I think the diagnosis at the end of Tenoke’s comment is probably right: people get into EA, want to do things as well as giving money, and come up with other things to do. But Tenoke evidently thinks that’s clearly bad; I don’t. Effort isn’t fungible in quite the way money is. If Ben is more excited by co-ops than by bednets, his donations should probably still go to bednets[1], but his time might be more effectively spent on co-ops because people are much more effective doing things they’re excited by. (And because no one is required to spend all their time on maximally-efficient charitable things.)
[1] I don’t mean necessarily literal bednets, of course; that’s shorthand for “plausibly near-maximally efficient charitable causes” and there’s plenty of scope for disagreement about what those are.
I’m not sure Tenoke’s wrong about “as a cause” being misleading here. I stand by what I originally said about those words not implying or suggesting that co-ops are most effective per dollar. But maybe using those words has funky subconscious effects similar to suggesting that, even if no one would claim that co-ops are most effective per dollar if asked explicitly, or maybe it attracts the eye of EAs in a way it doesn’t deserve to, or something. But Tenoke’s apparent indignation at those words seems way over the top to me.