Gates Foundation which AFAICT picks a measurable cause at emotional whim and then optimizes within that cause
This (if true, and of course GF claims to pick causes strategically) still doesn’t answer my original question, given that malaria is in fact one of the causes that the Gates Foundation has picked.
But then why haven’t we seen the positive judgments? Who would put in Holden’s level of cognitive work and then say nothing of that work, and why? Why keep the reasoning of your effective altruism a secret?
If the GF is keeping the details of their analyses secret, then I would count that against them, but not heavily. I can think of a bunch of reasons for it that wouldn’t reflect too badly on their ability to optimize within a cause. For example maybe Gates developed a habit of keeping things secret from his career in the for-profit IP field. I note that sometimes even MIRI seems to need a push to publish its internal reasonings.
More generally, what would make you update towards “People are crazy, the world is mad”?
I’m not sure what kind of answer you’re looking for, but in general I update towards it when the world seems madder than I expect, and away from it when it seems saner than I expect. For example I updated towards it a bit when no mainstream expert predicted ahead of time that something like Bitcoin might be possible (i.e., they ignored decentralized digital currency as a field until Bitcoin showed up), and away from it a bit when the US government seemed to start taking Bitcoin seriously as soon as it showed up on their radar.
This (if true, and of course GF claims to pick causes strategically) still doesn’t answer my original question, given that malaria is in fact one of the causes that the Gates Foundation has picked.
If the GF is keeping the details of their analyses secret, then I would count that against them, but not heavily. I can think of a bunch of reasons for it that wouldn’t reflect too badly on their ability to optimize within a cause. For example maybe Gates developed a habit of keeping things secret from his career in the for-profit IP field. I note that sometimes even MIRI seems to need a push to publish its internal reasonings.
I’m not sure what kind of answer you’re looking for, but in general I update towards it when the world seems madder than I expect, and away from it when it seems saner than I expect. For example I updated towards it a bit when no mainstream expert predicted ahead of time that something like Bitcoin might be possible (i.e., they ignored decentralized digital currency as a field until Bitcoin showed up), and away from it a bit when the US government seemed to start taking Bitcoin seriously as soon as it showed up on their radar.