Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#51

Post by akvadrako » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

kinsomo wrote: post #42

contravariant wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, but ultimately people are going to care more about children that are 'closer' to them. You're free to criticize people for this, but it probably won't do you any favours.

> That's a fair point, but ultimately people are going to care more about children that are 'closer' to them. You're free to criticize people for this, but it probably won't do you any favours. Also, making charity too much about distant problems and far off research outcomes factors out the civic and community-level thinking that actually drives and sustains a lot of charity. It also makes charity solely the domain…

That’s true but also what makes EA interesting. Ineffective charity is as good as nothing and sometimes worse. All the money poured into former colonies is a good example where it may be doing more harm than good.

The reason EA is not interesting is finding out what’s effective is so hard. Maybe local is much better.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#52

Post by castlecrasher2 » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #28

quirkot wrote: post #2

> Not all of this money was given with the intention of maximising human welfare. Take, for instance, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which helps children stricken with life-threatening illnesses, by granting “wishes”, such as meeting celebrities or visiting theme parks. The typical wish costs the foundation around $10,000 to fulfil—heartwarming for the recipient but of little help in improving health generally. This pre…

There's nothing shameful about donating to the Make-A-Wish foundation. It's certianly better to donate there than to spend the money on booze, video games, fancy clothes, etc or the vast majority of things competing for your money. But you still get far less moral credit for donating there than donating somewhere more effective. And yes, you can count the effects of the Foundation on the kids support network but reme…

> But you still get far less moral credit for donating there than donating somewhere more effective.

I take issue with this attitude. How is this anything but degrading and shaming those who give their time and money to a noble cause? I frankly don't see how your opinion on efficacy matters, it appears you want to make people feel bad for doing good-but-not-good-enough things.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#53

Post by haroldp » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

nandorsky wrote: post #38

This also assumes that decisions to donate to a cause are driven by logic based on an ROI calculation but they are often driven by emotion, not logic. Donors give to causes they care about and feel connected to. If you grew up homeless for example, you're more likely to give to a cause that helps alleviate homelessness vs buying nets to combat Malaria (where you may have no connection) even if the ROI for donating to…

> If you grew up homeless for example, you're more likely to give to a cause that helps alleviate homelessness

But does your charity actually alleviate homelessness? Effective altruism is still useful even if you have picked the cause to which you wish to contribute. You picked a great example, because homeless charities are notably bad at alleviating homelessness, and indeed may exacerbate it.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#54

Post by heckanoobs » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

Seipaho8 wrote: post #6

quirkot wrote: post #2

> Not all of this money was given with the intention of maximising human welfare. Take, for instance, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which helps children stricken with life-threatening illnesses, by granting “wishes”, such as meeting celebrities or visiting theme parks. The typical wish costs the foundation around $10,000 to fulfil—heartwarming for the recipient but of little help in improving health generally. This pre…

> who value things differently Can you try to formulate those values? > I would add that the Make-A-Wish foundation has a very significant quality of life impact on the kids AND their support network But given the costs per instance that impact is only on a small fraction of all cases. A smaller impact for everyone or one that only materializes in the future would likely generate more utility if you add them up.

> Can you try to formulate those values?

This is an issue I see with effective altruism and other (new atheism, veganism) hyper-rational movements. It's not enough to establish a viable alternative; they also have to exterminate every other line of thinking, in the pursuit of the almighty rationalization.

There's a lot of charities out there and I think it's enough if EA creates a marketing channel for some of them to have a unique advantage. "No one paid attention to us until we showed we save the most lives per dollar". If everyone agreed donating was entirely about maximizing lives/dollar then maybe this truly is the most important stat. But people donate for scads of less-than-rational but still well-meaning reasons.

It works against EA's (new atheism's, veganism's) best interests to draw a line in the sand and alienate everyone else. To me this feels as rational a conclusion as you can get, which makes it funny to me that the people particularly taken up by hyper-rationalism behave the way they do.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#55

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

Isn’t this just a statement that you disagree either with the relative probability of an AI-related disaster or the relative degree of harm it could cause?

It seems harsh to say it’s “morally repugnant” when in the end you’re just saying the way you assign probabilities and degrees of negative outcomes would lead you to invest in a different portfolio of charities or efforts than what this other group would do.

(I’m not arguing for or against the correctness of a belief that AI poses attention- and funding-worthy threats. Only that these other people motivated to allocate resources to it have studied the problem in great detail and their sincere belief after looking into it is that it is worth being part of the overall portfolio of charity investment, and this really would (in their sincere judgment) mitigate big-scale harm, no different than fundamental research into global warming or drug-resistant bacteria, regardless of whether lay people can more easily envision the types of harm from those other threats.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#56

Post by jimmy1 » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:18 PM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #31

specialist wrote: post #16

Sign me up for some scientific rigor in all policy work, journalism. State hypothesis, compare predictions to reality, show your work, cite your sources, peer review. The "replication crisis" touches everything. What I like to call "governance technology". We live in exciting times. I'm irrationally optimistic. Eager to see what happens next.

And publish your failures. The part where we don't publish our failures is a huge failing.

And fund opposing research and opposing hypothesis -- we need more than ever diversity of thought. There's no sense in doing all of this science with nothing to challenge it. The best policies or whatever it may be should be able to stand up against it.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#57

Post by ogennadi » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

I used to feel similarly until I realized that the EA movement isn't a hierarchical organization: it's just a bunch of totally separate orgs who have a common philosophy about how to do good in the world.

Sure, OpenPhil funds AI research. But Givewell (who, last I checked, share the same office) has in their Top Charities list, only those that work in poor countries

https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

[2] https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#58

Post by skybrian » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

Note that GiveWell is sticking to its original mission of evaluating charities based on scientific studies and isn't recommending AI funding.

However I'll push back on this. If it's okay for the government to fund basic scientific research where the benefits are long-term and unpredictable, why not private individuals? Or are you saying research shouldn't be funded at all?

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#59

Post by monadgonad » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #55

monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

Isn’t this just a statement that you disagree either with the relative probability of an AI-related disaster or the relative degree of harm it could cause? It seems harsh to say it’s “morally repugnant” when in the end you’re just saying the way you assign probabilities and degrees of negative outcomes would lead you to invest in a different portfolio of charities or efforts than what this other group would do. (I’m…

> Isn’t this just a statement that you disagree either with the relative probability of an AI-related disaster or the relative degree of harm it could cause?

Yes, but the point of this movement is that they're supposed to be evidenced-based and maximising ROI. There is evidence for the existence and threat of global warming and drug-resistant bacterial. When you move away from charitable efforts whose effectiveness we can directly measure, you're not doing EA any more, just regular emotional/value-based charity.

I do have different values and feelings about such non-evidence-based charity, and I think theirs are morally repugnant, especially when they claim to be doing EA.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#60

Post by buvanshak » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

miscreanity wrote: post #40

buvanshak wrote: post #13

I for one, will never trust the rich (Especially when it is clear when they pay people to promote their deeds and paint them an angel). I think what ever they do, they do it to gather more wealth (Even if it is not apparent for the common man). For an example, see how gates foundation tried to operate in India [1]. [1] http://jacob.puliyel.com/paper.php?id=370

There are wealthy individuals and organizations that seek to make profit from charitable projects and the example presented is far from the worst; corruption as seen in the Red Cross is one such issue. However, I expect the proportion of those instances relative to genuinely good efforts is overblown thanks to media. The wealthy are wealthy generally because they look to make sustainable models where the goal is to a…

I cannot make much sense of your comment. But let me expand on my original comment and tell this.

The only charitable work that I consider genuine is the one that you does not know about. When you read about the work of a person 'x' of a foundation in papers/media, their work cease to be charity. It is just that the person is gaining something, in return, other than "feeling good" you mention. Superficially, or in other words, as shallow as public perception goes, it will appear as benevolent, and often times, it can be. But there is nothing that guarantees it, since the end result is not of benevolence, but something materialistic or sinister.