Regarding efficiency of SENS, it has a huge potential payoff (indefinite lifespan, barring accidents, with good health) with reasonable probability of success, and large payoffs (extended lifespan and good health) for partial/in progress success. Aubrey de Grey impresses me as a goal-driven rationalist who could pull this off, with his ability to break the problem into pieces, find actionable approaches, and engage the wider scientific community to make progress.
Regarding global common goods versus helping individuals, I would be underestimating the benefit of common goods by multiplying the benefit to an individual by 7 billion, since that doesn’t account for humans born in the future.
I would view helping individuals more favorably if we could reliably help them sufficiently that they be able to pay it forward, and actually do so, at a super critical rate.
As the poster notes, Givewell is an attempt to change global institutions around philanthropy, not just to improve life for individuals:
Instead of donating directly to VillageReach, I’m going to just donate to GiveWell.… I think the work they’re doing gathering and distributing information about charities is critically important. If more charities actually competed on evidence of efficacy, the whole endeavour might be a lot different.
If GiveWell really does influence a substantial amount of philanthropy, then I would consider it as a public good charity with the multiplier that implies. Is there data on its influence and projected influence?
I recall a while back that Vasser was talking with GiveWell about rating SIAI. Has anything come of that?
Regarding efficiency of SENS, it has a huge potential payoff (indefinite lifespan, barring accidents, with good health) with reasonable probability of success, and large payoffs (extended lifespan and good health) for partial/in progress success. Aubrey de Grey impresses me as a goal-driven rationalist who could pull this off, with his ability to break the problem into pieces, find actionable approaches, and engage the wider scientific community to make progress.
Regarding global common goods versus helping individuals, I would be underestimating the benefit of common goods by multiplying the benefit to an individual by 7 billion, since that doesn’t account for humans born in the future.
I would view helping individuals more favorably if we could reliably help them sufficiently that they be able to pay it forward, and actually do so, at a super critical rate.
As the poster notes, Givewell is an attempt to change global institutions around philanthropy, not just to improve life for individuals:
If GiveWell really does influence a substantial amount of philanthropy, then I would consider it as a public good charity with the multiplier that implies. Is there data on its influence and projected influence?
I recall a while back that Vasser was talking with GiveWell about rating SIAI. Has anything come of that?
Yes. They posted a bunch of self-evaluation stats. It is a start toward the information you seek.