My arguments weren’t meant to be logically water tight to lead to an undeniable position refuting a particular position, they were meant to start a discussion.
Why is it messed up? Lack of competition. Why is there so little competition in the cause prioritization space? Why aren’t there more organisations saying EA’s, donate to this best cause? Some may say it’s an economy of scale thing, but I feel like it has lead to EA orgs becoming quite methodologically lazy. While there are lots of incredible strengths, we also have weaknesses and despite open solicitation for criticism, whenever I for one criticise aspects of the movement I get shot down without my actual arguments getting shot down.
I hate to keep being the resident cost-effectiveness skeptic/denialist and getting tonnes of downvotes for it (but someone has to be the Red Team in the EA movement), but I wanted to clarify and admit that I misunderstood much of the controversy around deworming and that is it contained to: 1) the impact of MASS deworming v.s. individual deworming), which is relevant to deciding whether charitable deworming (like Deworm the world or SCI) rather than user fee style deworming (private businesses, charity distortion free, free markets) is appropriate and (2) whether deworming is actually that much a good public health intervention. I like effective altruism cause I have a very low tolerance for the idea that I might be donating to wasteful causes, and I feel like this is something that would concern many EA’s and we ought to investigate it. I wish an informal committee of some sort was convened to routinely challenge or dogmas cause I feel we have been stagnating and are increasingly becoming complacent, naïve (see GiveWell’s underwhelming responses to the Cochrane review disfavourful of deworming) and thus increasingly unsexy. Ps. I feel like altruism is way to contentious a word for a movement that could be less about ‘ethics’ and other vague philosophical vocabulary and more about economy and charity, which describes what we actually do.
Why aren’t there more organisations saying EA’s, donate to this best cause?
Because most people don’t value everyone’s welfare equally, and that’s a basic assumption of EA. It’s like asking why there aren’t more organizations selling lollipops containing insects.
My arguments weren’t meant to be logically water tight to lead to an undeniable position refuting a particular position, they were meant to start a discussion.
Why is it messed up? Lack of competition. Why is there so little competition in the cause prioritization space? Why aren’t there more organisations saying EA’s, donate to this best cause? Some may say it’s an economy of scale thing, but I feel like it has lead to EA orgs becoming quite methodologically lazy. While there are lots of incredible strengths, we also have weaknesses and despite open solicitation for criticism, whenever I for one criticise aspects of the movement I get shot down without my actual arguments getting shot down.
I hate to keep being the resident cost-effectiveness skeptic/denialist and getting tonnes of downvotes for it (but someone has to be the Red Team in the EA movement), but I wanted to clarify and admit that I misunderstood much of the controversy around deworming and that is it contained to: 1) the impact of MASS deworming v.s. individual deworming), which is relevant to deciding whether charitable deworming (like Deworm the world or SCI) rather than user fee style deworming (private businesses, charity distortion free, free markets) is appropriate and (2) whether deworming is actually that much a good public health intervention. I like effective altruism cause I have a very low tolerance for the idea that I might be donating to wasteful causes, and I feel like this is something that would concern many EA’s and we ought to investigate it. I wish an informal committee of some sort was convened to routinely challenge or dogmas cause I feel we have been stagnating and are increasingly becoming complacent, naïve (see GiveWell’s underwhelming responses to the Cochrane review disfavourful of deworming) and thus increasingly unsexy. Ps. I feel like altruism is way to contentious a word for a movement that could be less about ‘ethics’ and other vague philosophical vocabulary and more about economy and charity, which describes what we actually do.
Because most people don’t value everyone’s welfare equally, and that’s a basic assumption of EA. It’s like asking why there aren’t more organizations selling lollipops containing insects.