I'd donate to 3 organisations I expect to influence government decision making positively:
(1) Happier Lives Institute. When governments try to decide what projects to prioritize, they normally consider financial/health benefits. Being able to compare the wider benefits to people's wellbeing would be a powerful new tool.
(2) Centre for Women's Justice. I don't know of any country that competently prosecutes domestic violence and sex crimes. The Centre for Women's Justice is strategically prosecuting specific government decisions in order to set new precedents for women seeking justice.
(3) The Simon Institute for Longterm Governance. This is a very new charity without many results yet. However, their website, working papers and trustees give them credibility and their plan for how to have an impact is sound. I would like to see them funded for 2-5 years, without needing to think about fundraising.
Dear Khorton, I just wanted to say thank you for this vote of confidence - it is very motivating to see civil servants who think we're on to something.
Disclaimer: This blog post focuses on a new piece of research from Rethink Priorities. I was not involved with the funding or execution of this research, and therefore write this piece merely as a consumer. However, I am the Executive Director of Giving Green and a board member of Rethink Priorities, and acknowledge that these affiliations may bias my...
Epistemic status: Speculation from two decently informed advocates armed with anecdata.
Note on process: After having some version of this conversation several times and saying, “we should probably write about this publicly,” we took the less heroic route: we recorded one of our conversations, fed the transcript into an LLM, and then substantially revised the structure, substance, and framing ourselves. We will not be sharing the transcript, as it is in...
Michael Nielsen has a beautiful new essay on moral imagination: the ability humans have to 'develop and transmit new notions of good action, indeed, even new kinds of good'.
As examples, he gives:
* Hammurabi's creation of a code of laws (in 1754 BCE) and his justification of his rule not in terms of divine or hereditary right, but by the delivery of justice to his citizens.
* St Gregory of Nyssa's...
I call this "fantasy philanthropy." How would you spend a large amount of money? What organizations would you donate to? Would you spend or save most of it?
I'd donate to 3 organisations I expect to influence government decision making positively:
(1) Happier Lives Institute. When governments try to decide what projects to prioritize, they normally consider financial/health benefits. Being able to compare the wider benefits to people's wellbeing would be a powerful new tool.
(2) Centre for Women's Justice. I don't know of any country that competently prosecutes domestic violence and sex crimes. The Centre for Women's Justice is strategically prosecuting specific government decisions in order to set new precedents for women seeking justice.
(3) The Simon Institute for Longterm Governance. This is a very new charity without many results yet. However, their website, working papers and trustees give them credibility and their plan for how to have an impact is sound. I would like to see them funded for 2-5 years, without needing to think about fundraising.
Dear Khorton, I just wanted to say thank you for this vote of confidence - it is very motivating to see civil servants who think we're on to something.