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One reason I'm excited about work on lead exposure is that it hits a sweet spot of meaningfully benefiting both humans and nonhumans. Lead has dramatic and detrimental effects for not just mammals, but basically all animals, from birds to aquatic animals to insects.
Are there other interventions that potentially likewise hit this sweet spot?
Someone+anonymous I think) recently suggested family planning at this intersection as well, because less humans = less animal suffering too. I did however think as a counterpoint this could be offset by the accelerated development associated with family planning could mean quicker transitions to factory farming too, bit that's just conjecture.
On this note any interventions that speed development could potentially be in the "negative" , anti sweet spot here too as developing country = more meat eaten = more factory farming.
Perhaps the soaking beans thing could also own slightly in this direction, someone suggested if coming beans were cheaper it could push further against eating meat, and also prevent deforestation which could either increase our reduce wild animal suffering - increase animal suffering by reducing habitat, or reduce it as less weeks animals can survive in the deforested area
Wow it's complicated
I admire you for repeatedly pushing a point that is so ideologically awkward for people, but that's not quite right. Sometimes family planning just changes when people have kids, rather than how many. In those cases, the other gains from it are good on all sensible views, and there's no objection based on "creating happy people is good".
I appreciate that, and I agree with you!
However, as far as I'm aware, EA-recommended family planning interventions do decrease the amount of children people have. If these charities benefit farmed animals (and I believe they do), decreasing the human population is where these charities' benefits for farmed animals come from.
I've estimated that both MHI and FEM prevent on the order of 100 pregnancies for each maternal life they save. Unless my estimates are way too high (please let me know if they're wrong; I'm happy to update!), even if only a very small percentage of these pregnancies would have resulted in counterfactual births, both of these charities would still on net decrease the amount of children people have.
To the extent that they change timing rather than total number, the benefits (e.g. reduced maternal mortality) are probably overstated also, because you some of the maternal deaths you thought you prevents were actually just delayed.
Despite this I think Ariel is correct and these interventions are reducing the number.
Big picture wise isn't this making a normative judgement? Assuming a carrying capacity of earth for total biomass, less humans means more animal lives who are unable to record or communicate their experiences. We don't know what animals experience pre language but it's possible they are unable to reliably encode their experiences without the structure of a human language. (Similar to how humans have little memory from early childhood)
I am not sure it's a fair normative judgement to conclude this is an improvement.
Take it to the limit. All of humanity has died off except a small 100 person tribe. Nature has reclaimed everything else. Is this a net better world?
That biomass assumption has fallout if it's correct. For example blocking housing expansion for more wolf habitat might be the same tradeoff. Are the qalys of wolves better than the humans who might live there?
I think the biomass assumption does have a flaw: when we generate artificial fertilizer from fossil fuel and feed humans and pets with the agricultural products we are in disequilibrium, we can only do this for a finite amount of time before we can't.
Pork tapeworms are another cause area where both humans and nonhumans could benefit:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oZff425xLnikfxeGD/pat-myron-s-shortform?commentId=7WPBp7dh9sA3BKEpB
I’m a huge fan of lead elimination too! And I could imagine that, for instance, cleaning up soil from battery recycling or mining could benefit some animals.
But just wanted to note that some of the most promising interventions to protect humans (eg getting lead out of spices, paint, cookware, cosmetics, toys, water pipes, etc) might not have much effect on nonhuman animals.
EA NYC is soliciting applications for Board Members! We especially welcome applications submitted by Sunday, September 24, 2023, but rolling applications will also be considered. This is a volunteer position, but crucial in both shaping the strategy of EA NYC and ensuring our sustainability and compliance as an organization. If you have questions, Jacob Eliosoff is the primary point of contact. I think this is a great opportunity for deepened involvement and impact for a range of backgrounds!
I often see people talking past each other when discussing x-risks because the definition[1] covers outcomes that are distinct in some worldviews. For some, humanity failing to reach its full potential and humanity going extinct are joint concerns, but for others they are separate outcomes. Is there a good solution to this?
I propose "positive and negative longtermism", so something to do with reaching full potential would all be positive longtermism and mere extinction protection is negative longtermism.
Curated and popular this week
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Or on the types of prioritization, their strengths, pitfalls, and how EA should balance them
The cause prioritization landscape in EA is changing. Prominent groups have shut down, others have been founded, and everyone is trying to figure out how to prepare for AI. This is the first in a series of posts examining the state of cause prioritization and proposing strategies for moving forward.
Executive Summary
* Performing prioritization work has been one of the main tasks, and arguably achievements, of EA.
* We highlight three types of prioritization: Cause Prioritization, Within-Cause (Intervention) Prioritization, and Cross-Cause (Intervention) Prioritization.
* We ask how much of EA prioritization work falls in each of these categories:
* Our estimates suggest that, for the organizations we investigated, the current split is 89% within-cause work, 2% cross-cause, and 9% cause prioritization.
* We then explore strengths and potential pitfalls of each level:
* Cause prioritization offers a big-picture view for identifying pressing problems but can fail to capture the practical nuances that often determine real-world success.
* Within-cause prioritization focuses on a narrower set of interventions with deeper more specialised analysis but risks missing higher-impact alternatives elsewhere.
* Cross-cause prioritization broadens the scope to find synergies and the potential for greater impact, yet demands complex assumptions and compromises on measurement.
* See the Summary Table below to view the considerations.
* We encourage reflection and future work on what the best ways of prioritizing are and how EA should allocate resources between the three types.
* With this in mind, we outline eight cruxes that sketch what factors could favor some types over others.
* We also suggest some potential next steps aimed at refining our approach to prioritization by exploring variance, value of information, tractability, and the
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[Cross-posted from my Substack here]
If you spend time with people trying to change the world, you’ll come to an interesting conundrum: Various advocacy groups reference previous successful social movements as to why their chosen strategy is the most important one. Yet, these groups often follow wildly different strategies from each other to achieve social change. So, which one of them is right?
The answer is all of them and none of them.
This is because many people use research and historical movements to justify their pre-existing beliefs about how social change happens. Simply, you can find a case study to fit most plausible theories of how social change happens. For example, the groups might say:
* Repeated nonviolent disruption is the key to social change, citing the Freedom Riders from the civil rights Movement or Act Up! from the gay rights movement.
* Technological progress is what drives improvements in the human condition if you consider the development of the contraceptive pill funded by Katharine McCormick.
* Organising and base-building is how change happens, as inspired by Ella Baker, the NAACP or Cesar Chavez from the United Workers Movement.
* Insider advocacy is the real secret of social movements – look no further than how influential the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was in passing the Civil Rights Acts of 1960 & 1964.
* Democratic participation is the backbone of social change – just look at how Ireland lifted a ban on abortion via a Citizen’s Assembly.
* And so on…
To paint this picture, we can see this in action below:
Source: Just Stop Oil which focuses on…civil resistance and disruption
Source: The Civic Power Fund which focuses on… local organising
What do we take away from all this? In my mind, a few key things:
1. Many different approaches have worked in changing the world so we should be humble and not assume we are doing The Most Important Thing
2. The case studies we focus on are likely confirmation bias, where
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I wanted to share a small but important challenge I've encountered as a student engaging with Effective Altruism from a lower-income country (Nigeria), and invite thoughts or suggestions from the community.
Recently, I tried to make a one-time donation to one of the EA-aligned charities listed on the Giving What We Can platform. However, I discovered that I could not donate an amount less than $5.
While this might seem like a minor limit for many, for someone like me — a student without a steady income or job, $5 is a significant amount.
To provide some context:
According to Numbeo, the average monthly income of a Nigerian worker is around $130–$150, and students often rely on even less — sometimes just $20–$50 per month for all expenses. For many students here, having $5 "lying around" isn't common at all; it could represent a week's worth of meals or transportation.
I personally want to make small, one-time donations whenever I can, rather than commit to a recurring pledge like the 10% Giving What We Can pledge, which isn't feasible for me right now. I also want to encourage members of my local EA group, who are in similar financial situations, to practice giving through small but meaningful donations.
In light of this, I would like to:
* Recommend that Giving What We Can (and similar platforms) consider allowing smaller minimum donation amounts to make giving more accessible to students and people in lower-income countries.
* Suggest that more organizations be added to the platform, to give donors a wider range of causes they can support with their small contributions.
Uncertainties:
* Are there alternative platforms or methods that allow very small one-time donations to EA-aligned charities?
* Is there a reason behind the $5 minimum that I'm unaware of, and could it be adjusted to be more inclusive?
I strongly believe that cultivating a habit of giving, even with small amounts, helps build a long-term culture of altruism — and it would
It’s noteworthy that if the procreation asymmetry is rejected, the sign of family planning interventions is the opposite of the sign of lifesaving interventions like AMF. Thus, those who support AMF might not support family planning interventions, and vice versa.