You’ve given a lot of details specifically about Madagascar, but not actually responded to the substantive argument in the post. What global picture does this correspond to, under which the $5k per life saved figure is still true and meaningful? I don’t see how the existence of somewhere for which no lives can be saved for $5k makes that claim any more plausible.
Your claim, as I understood it—which maybe I didn’t, because you have been frustratingly vague about your own argument at the same time as demanding ever-increasing amounts of detail from anyone who questions it—was that if the $5k-per-life-equivalent figure were real then there “should” be some experiment that could be done “in a well-defined area like Madagascar” that would be convincing enough to be a good use of the (large) resources it would cost.
I suggest that the scenario I described above is obviously consistent with a $5k-per-life-equivalent figure in the places where bednets are most effective per unit spent. I assume you picked Madagascar because (being isolated, fairly small, etc.) it would be a good place for an experiment.
If you think it is not credible that any global picture makes the $5k figure “true and meaningful” then it is up to you to give a good argument for that. So far, it seems to me that you have not done so; you have asserted that if it were true then EA organizations should be running large-scale experiments to prove it, but you haven’t offered any credible calculations or anything to show that if the $5k figure were right then doing such experiments would be a good use of the available resources, and my back-of-envelope calculations above suggest that in the specific place you proposed, namely Madagascar, they quite likely wouldn’t be.
Perhaps I’m wrong. I often am. But I think you need to provide more than handwaving here. Show us your detailed models and calculations that demonstrate that if the $5k figure is anywhere near right then EA organizations should be acting very differently from how they actually are acting. Stop making grand claims and then demanding that other people do the hard work of giving quantitative evidence that you’re wrong, when you yourself haven’t done the hard work of giving quantitative evidence that you’re right.
Once again I say: what you are doing here is not what arguing in good faith usually looks like.
You’ve given a lot of details specifically about Madagascar, but not actually responded to the substantive argument in the post. What global picture does this correspond to, under which the $5k per life saved figure is still true and meaningful? I don’t see how the existence of somewhere for which no lives can be saved for $5k makes that claim any more plausible.
Your claim, as I understood it—which maybe I didn’t, because you have been frustratingly vague about your own argument at the same time as demanding ever-increasing amounts of detail from anyone who questions it—was that if the $5k-per-life-equivalent figure were real then there “should” be some experiment that could be done “in a well-defined area like Madagascar” that would be convincing enough to be a good use of the (large) resources it would cost.
I suggest that the scenario I described above is obviously consistent with a $5k-per-life-equivalent figure in the places where bednets are most effective per unit spent. I assume you picked Madagascar because (being isolated, fairly small, etc.) it would be a good place for an experiment.
If you think it is not credible that any global picture makes the $5k figure “true and meaningful” then it is up to you to give a good argument for that. So far, it seems to me that you have not done so; you have asserted that if it were true then EA organizations should be running large-scale experiments to prove it, but you haven’t offered any credible calculations or anything to show that if the $5k figure were right then doing such experiments would be a good use of the available resources, and my back-of-envelope calculations above suggest that in the specific place you proposed, namely Madagascar, they quite likely wouldn’t be.
Perhaps I’m wrong. I often am. But I think you need to provide more than handwaving here. Show us your detailed models and calculations that demonstrate that if the $5k figure is anywhere near right then EA organizations should be acting very differently from how they actually are acting. Stop making grand claims and then demanding that other people do the hard work of giving quantitative evidence that you’re wrong, when you yourself haven’t done the hard work of giving quantitative evidence that you’re right.
Once again I say: what you are doing here is not what arguing in good faith usually looks like.