All I want for Christmas...is for someone from the effective altruism movement to take the prospect of using sterile-insect techniques and more advanced gene drives against the Tsetse fly seriously. This might control African Sleeping Sickness, a neglected disease, and more importantly, unlock what is largely suspected to be THE keystone cause, according to GiveWell of malnutrition in Africa through an extensive causal pathway. I feel EA’s are getting too stuck into causes that were identified early in the movement and are neglected the virtue of cause neutrality.
(2)
Isn’t it time effective altruists matured to using standardised measures of impact on an individual such as the impact on psychological distress. Then, approximated where interventions sat on a scale of magnitude of cummulative K10 scores. They’re a simple metric, you can teach NGO/Aid orgs how to understand them quickly and measures of psychological well-being are the ‘net result’ of individual differences in changes to health and SES.
(3)
Any thoughts on the prospective impact of a documentary about effective altruism? Looks like the best we got are Vaughan’s great speeches from effective altruism global and other little to no view YouTube clips, and Singer’s TED talk.
(4)
Kidney donation saves 14 QALY. Death organ donation saves perhaps 10 people with donations, that’s 140 QALY’s. GiveWell gets a QALY for about 80 bucks, so being an organ donor is worth about 80*140=11200 dollars. Upon Googling I found cyronics has a 90 percent chance of success. That sounds wildely optimistic so I’m going to half that and estimate that unintended consequences will kill my (guess) 500 years into my life. So, assuming that extends from a 80 year average lifestyle, I’d have to make 500-80 years of additional life = 420. Maths isn’t needed to suggest I’ll have a donation capacity and propensity for as if not more effectiveness donation opportunities than GiveWell’s in those years. So, cyronics is more altruistic for EA’s than organ donors, no?
Update, the lesswrong survey says the probability is 7% at a glance. So that’s around 1⁄15.
420⁄15 = 28 years. In 28 years I still imagine I’d be able to donate that amount, assuming 10%/y income donation into a trust that actualises upon my death.
Anyone on LessWrong wanna get together ha … ha …? Just assume the worst traits for me, and don’t ask about them. Then just evaluate my writing here as my best trait and make a choice on that ;)
Info diet
Last read with an open mind: Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Take-aways from this one include:
the importance of thinking carefully about marketshare
the value of ‘value-capture’ and thinking like a monopolist to private gains
Last listened to with an open mind: Danger and Play podcast by Mike Cenovich
Take-aways from this one include:
‘mindset is like a conversation, I wouldn’t be as harsh on myself as on others’
There are take aways in every watching and it suprises me everytime. Even now I feel my attitude towards they show hasn’t upward callibrated that I don’t feel the need to publicly declare my interest in it in the hope of prompting a re-watch at a time when it will help. They same goes for my ‘last watched:’
Last watched with an: Mark Freeman (youtube)
A world of insights in every video. They are not new insights when I rewatch videos, but they are sufficienty abstract, complex and result in a high enough cognitive load that I forget between days of watching. Too bad it’s extremely boring to listen to them, and, somewhat shame-inducing since mental illness is a taboo topic.
From the last article, some other interesting points made:
In a 1999 study reported in the Medical Journal of Australia, it was found that most of health care complainants were not satisfied with either the process or the outcome. Typically they wanted stronger measures taken. Only a few wanted compensation; more wanted acknowledgement of harm done; and most wanted the doctor punished.
Following medical negligence in Australia not every patient sues whenever something goes wrong. Most patients just want the mistake to be acknowledged, and for the doctor to apologise.
Getting a lawyer to deal with medical negligence in Australia is becoming more difficult and a common myth is that lawyers take on ANY case regardless of its merits, in order to make $$$.
The commercial reality is that lawyers only take cases on if they believe there is a good chance of winning i.e if they are meritorious claims. After all, most cases are done on a No Win No Fee basis, so if the lawyer loses, then they won’t get paid; there is just no financial incentive in running a frivolous claim.
The government has almost completely done away with legal aid for medical negligence victims. If it wasn’t for lawyers taking on the financial risks of running a medical negligence case, most Australian citizens would not be able to afford to pursue their rights.
Looks like a pretty tangly situation with no clear fix
Isn’t it time effective altruists matured to using standardised measures of impact on an individual such as the impact on psychological distress.
EA mostly is about using statistics that are already out there.
The K10 scores has questions that are strongly culturally dependent.1. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel tired out for no good reason? depends heavily on what people consider to be “good reasons which differes a lot from culture to culture. It might very well be interpreted by some people as: Did you do anything that produced karma that you have to pay of by being tired
Thoughts this week:
Effective Altruism
(1)
All I want for Christmas...is for someone from the effective altruism movement to take the prospect of using sterile-insect techniques and more advanced gene drives against the Tsetse fly seriously. This might control African Sleeping Sickness, a neglected disease, and more importantly, unlock what is largely suspected to be THE keystone cause, according to GiveWell of malnutrition in Africa through an extensive causal pathway. I feel EA’s are getting too stuck into causes that were identified early in the movement and are neglected the virtue of cause neutrality.
(2)
Isn’t it time effective altruists matured to using standardised measures of impact on an individual such as the impact on psychological distress. Then, approximated where interventions sat on a scale of magnitude of cummulative K10 scores. They’re a simple metric, you can teach NGO/Aid orgs how to understand them quickly and measures of psychological well-being are the ‘net result’ of individual differences in changes to health and SES.
(3)
Any thoughts on the prospective impact of a documentary about effective altruism? Looks like the best we got are Vaughan’s great speeches from effective altruism global and other little to no view YouTube clips, and Singer’s TED talk.
(4)
Kidney donation saves 14 QALY. Death organ donation saves perhaps 10 people with donations, that’s 140 QALY’s. GiveWell gets a QALY for about 80 bucks, so being an organ donor is worth about 80*140=11200 dollars. Upon Googling I found cyronics has a 90 percent chance of success. That sounds wildely optimistic so I’m going to half that and estimate that unintended consequences will kill my (guess) 500 years into my life. So, assuming that extends from a 80 year average lifestyle, I’d have to make 500-80 years of additional life = 420. Maths isn’t needed to suggest I’ll have a donation capacity and propensity for as if not more effectiveness donation opportunities than GiveWell’s in those years. So, cyronics is more altruistic for EA’s than organ donors, no?
Update, the lesswrong survey says the probability is 7% at a glance. So that’s around 1⁄15.
420⁄15 = 28 years. In 28 years I still imagine I’d be able to donate that amount, assuming 10%/y income donation into a trust that actualises upon my death.
Productivity
(1)
I want to contionue to streamline my workflow. Screw SMS, I’m gonna phase out to email alone with Google Voice forwarding on my SMS’s to email
Relationships
Anyone on LessWrong wanna get together ha … ha …? Just assume the worst traits for me, and don’t ask about them. Then just evaluate my writing here as my best trait and make a choice on that ;)
Info diet
Last read with an open mind: Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Take-aways from this one include:
the importance of thinking carefully about marketshare
the value of ‘value-capture’ and thinking like a monopolist to private gains
Last listened to with an open mind: Danger and Play podcast by Mike Cenovich
Take-aways from this one include:
‘mindset is like a conversation, I wouldn’t be as harsh on myself as on others’ There are take aways in every watching and it suprises me everytime. Even now I feel my attitude towards they show hasn’t upward callibrated that I don’t feel the need to publicly declare my interest in it in the hope of prompting a re-watch at a time when it will help. They same goes for my ‘last watched:’
Last watched with an: Mark Freeman (youtube)
A world of insights in every video. They are not new insights when I rewatch videos, but they are sufficienty abstract, complex and result in a high enough cognitive load that I forget between days of watching. Too bad it’s extremely boring to listen to them, and, somewhat shame-inducing since mental illness is a taboo topic.
Medical malpractice
Australia has the highest rate of medical error in the world according to the World Health Organisation. Counterintuitive as it may seem in Australia there are negligible institutional incentive to fight medical malpractice Instead over the past couple of years, extensive lobbying has taken place by the medical profession for changes to the law for medical negligence in Australia. Medical lobby groups have sought to have the governments legislate what is known as the Bolam test- where the negligence of a doctor is determined solely on the basis of other doctor’s opinions about the doctor’s conduct, regardless of what judges and the courts have to say
From the last article, some other interesting points made:
Looks like a pretty tangly situation with no clear fix
EA mostly is about using statistics that are already out there.
The K10 scores has questions that are strongly culturally dependent.
1. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel tired out for no good reason?depends heavily on what people consider to be “good reasons which differes a lot from culture to culture. It might very well be interpreted by some people as:Did you do anything that produced karma that you have to pay of by being tiredSo K10 isn’t validated in other cultures?
The tool used to measure psychological distress by GiveDirectly isn’t validated in Africa.