For one thing, most people giving to charity don’t even seem to care what returns (in social value) they’re getting with their investments.
To be fair, Givewell itself is getting increasing amounts of attention, and there have been other charity-effectiveness-related organizations like Charity Navigator. I suspect it’s more accurate to say that people don’t think to evaluate charitable effectiveness rather than that they’re uninterested. How many of us came up with the ideas behind effective altruism ourselves as opposed to hearing them from someone else?
The few times I’ve talked to conventionally altruistic people about EA, I’ve succeeded in convincing them that it was an interesting and useful way to think about things, at least, without too much effort. It can be hard to convince people to become EAs, but I suspect it’s the altruism part that’s hard, not the effectiveness part. (This suggests that conventionally altruistic people, e.g. vegetarians or soup kitchen volunteers, might be good people to recruit for the EA movement.)
Anyway, another reason we’d expect financial markets to be more efficient than charitable markets is that top players in financial markets tend to accumulate more capital, which consequentially makes them bigger players who have more influence on the market. Also, you can’t do arbitrage, buy options, or any of that kind of stuff.
To be fair, Givewell itself is getting increasing amounts of attention, and there have been other charity-effectiveness-related organizations like Charity Navigator. I suspect it’s more accurate to say that people don’t think to evaluate charitable effectiveness rather than that they’re uninterested. How many of us came up with the ideas behind effective altruism ourselves as opposed to hearing them from someone else?
The few times I’ve talked to conventionally altruistic people about EA, I’ve succeeded in convincing them that it was an interesting and useful way to think about things, at least, without too much effort. It can be hard to convince people to become EAs, but I suspect it’s the altruism part that’s hard, not the effectiveness part. (This suggests that conventionally altruistic people, e.g. vegetarians or soup kitchen volunteers, might be good people to recruit for the EA movement.)
Anyway, another reason we’d expect financial markets to be more efficient than charitable markets is that top players in financial markets tend to accumulate more capital, which consequentially makes them bigger players who have more influence on the market. Also, you can’t do arbitrage, buy options, or any of that kind of stuff.