January Open Thread

A suggestion: if people want career advice and would like to have a wide discussion about it, let it be known that you can do this on the EA Forum. You can ask for advice in a comment here or in a new thread. If you prefer privacy, you may like to use a different username from your usual one but if so, I'm happy to give posting privileges for this purpose, just send me a message!

I was reading The Phatic and the Antic-Inductive on Slate Star Codex.

Why's this relevant?

Birthday and Christmas charity fundraisers of course!

There is a sense in which the concept of a birthday fundraiser is anti-inductive - if they worked, and everyone realised they worked, then a lot more people would be doing them and they wouldn't work so well any more.

But actually running a fundraiser feels more like phatic communication. You're really communicating very little information about the charity you want people to give money to, but people seem to appreciate it and (as far as I know) very rarely get mad.

So is there some kind of lesson here that in some situations, one mindset is better, in other situations a different mindset is better... but always to remember that the other person may have a very different mindset to yourself?

I want to publish several posts on this forum in the coming weeks. This is an open call for reviewers for various posts. I believe it's more important to get the information out there than for me to publish it. So, for topics for which I have insufficient content or information, I'm seeking coauthors. Here's the list. Feel free to comment which ones you'd be willing to review below, or send me a private message. I may draft some of these posts in Google Docs, or another word processor, before I publish them, so send me a private message with your email if you like. Just comment below if you're generally willing to review them, instead of any particular ones:

Does It Make Sense to Make A Multi-Year Donation Commitment to A Single Organization? Essentially, this already published comment

What Doesn't Count As Effective Altruism? Rob Wiblin presented a talk at the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit entitled 'What is Effective Altruism?' Posting a summary of the whole talk on this forum seems redundant, but near the end Mr. Wiblin covered what, at least from the perspective of himself and the Centre for Effective Altruism, what's disqualified from effective altruism. I believe this may make a good post. If the idea of this post raises red flags in your mind about possible controversy, I anticipate that, and you're also welcome to review my post before I publish it.

Neglectedness, Tractability, and Importance/Value The idea of heuristically identifying a cause area based on these three criteria was more or less a theme of the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit. This three-prong approach was independently highlighted by Peter Thiel, not just for non-profit work but entrepreneurship and and innovation more generally, and Holden Karnofsky, as the basis for how the Open Philanthropy Project asks questions about what cause areas to consider. Several months ago I discussed with Owen Cotton-Barratt publishing a post on this subject, or perhaps coauthoring it. Still, that hasn't happened from either of us yet, so I'll definitely be doing it, seeking input from yourself as well.

Effective Collaboration Michael Vassar gave a small lightning-talk at the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit on how organizations and others within the effective altruism movement may better collaborate. In his opinion, there is or was a dearth of this within the movement, and that's a problem. I'd like to interview or contact Mr. Vassar about this, as my notes are incomplete. If I can't achieve that, I likely won't publish this post unless others come forward with their detailed perspectives on this issue.

Volunteer and Human Resource Coordination This would be a followup to the above post, with possible intent to launch or coordinate a project. Vassar noted as an aside that the effective altruism movement may greatly benefit from having something like a COO between organizations, or something like a super-secretary. This could be a person, perhaps full-time, completely dedicated to getting all of effective altruism's logistical ducks in a row. This seems an important intermediate role. It may be fitting to have this organized by the Centre For Effective Altruism. However, just in case, this post may survey .impact and other effective altruist coalitions in an effort towards greater coordination and communication between everyone.

Crowdfunding and Effective Altruism This would be a post exploring how to use crowdfunding effectively, how it's previously been used across the world for effective causes, and what future potential it may hold for effective altruism. As I write this, I realize this post would also need to differentiate crowdfunding versus normal fundraising, and what the advantages and disadvantages of crowdfunding might be relative to normal fundraising. If you have experience in organizing either normal fundraisers, or crowdfunding campaigns, your input would especially be appreciated.

What Role Do Small-to-Medium Donors Play In the Future of Effective Altruism In the face of individuals such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel making large donations to effective organizations, and cause areas, to the tune of millions of dollars, and in the near future Good Ventures throwing tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars at effective causes and charities, I anticipate they may exhaust giving opportunities presently available and sensible for most of us. Most of us won't become multi-millionaires, presumably. Even in the face of donating four- or five-figure sums each year, an extremely high net-worth donor or foundation may render redundant the efforts of tens or hundreds of other effective altruists earning to give. Whether its funding our currently recommended charities to the point of room for more funding issues in one fell swoop, or the most effective cause areas requiring only huge donations to be tractable, such as policy advocacy, it poses an issue. I feel like this may pose an identity crisis for effective altruism, and may change how, e.g., 80,000 Hours recommends effective altruists enter earning to give as a career.

Reevaluating Earning to Give This post would be related to the above, and its implications for earning to give. Also, I'd be seeking arguments both for and against earning to give as a career option worth pursuing from within the effective altruism movement, but not from 80,000 Hours.

Member Perspectives on 80,000 Hours This post would be a retrospective and a set of critiques on how various members of 80,000 Hours think of its performance. This could range from general satisfaction with the organization, to measured evaluations of specific outcomes from 80,000 Hours. This would deliberately seeking input from others, like myself, who don't have an affiliation with 80,000 Hours beyond latent membership.

Is there any way for EAs who are looking for housemates to find each other?

Living with other EAs is a really powerful way to strengthen the community, and finding like-minded housemates can also have a financial impact for many of us.

If there's nothing already out there then I'm going to make something.

Do you think it is better to decide each year where to donate, or to give organizations multi-year commitments of what you expect to donate?

This piece from an AI researcher at NYU criticizing Nick Bostrum's SuperIntelligence seems like it's worth a look (and hasn't been posted here yet), for folks interested in the subject.

There's a "charity portfolio management" startup called The Agora Fund that's trying to funnel money to high-impact nonprofits. It seems to be using a reasonable definition of "impact" (e.g., they're using Givewell as an information source and listing GiveDirectly and Deworm the World as top charities). I'd never heard of them before, but saw that they're hiring in New York.

• Site link
• Investor info pamphlet

They try to tailor impact research reports donors' priorities, aggregate donations for payment and tax purposes, and take a cut between 2.25 and 7.25% of the donated amount. (The higher figure is for charities they provide research reports on, so it's actually a larger cut for the charities they recommend.) Page 13 describes the service levels/costs/benefits.

The fact that it's a for-profit company is a bit surprising. Does anyone have any thoughts about whether this seems useful, beneficial, likely to succeed, etc.?

For those of you that earn credit card points, you might want to check if your points can be used to donate money to charity. For my credit card, I'm able to donate more money per point than if I redeemed the points for cash. I believe these donations are tax deductible in the U.S. (I think they would go on line 17 in Schedule A).

So, I have a slate of questions that I often ask people to try and better understand them. Recently I realized that one of these questions may not be as open-ended as I'd thought, in the sense that it may actually have a proper answer according to Bayesian rationality. Though, I remain uncertain about this. I've also posted this question to the Less Wrong open thread, but I'm curious what Effective Altruists in particular would think about this question. If you'd rather you can private message me your answer. Keep in mind the question is intentionally somewhat ambiguous.

The question is:

Truth or Happiness? If you had to choose between one or the other, which would you pick?

Does anyone know of good investigations of the impact of technological unemployment? Any EA people/orgs that have looked at it?

Does anyone know (from experience) good articles/books on not-necessarily-AI technology risks or non-AI technology risk?

Is "Global Catastrophic Risks" by Bostrom worth reading in this context? It's from 2008; my concern is that it might be outdated.

I have more ideas for posts to publish to this forum:

The Growth of Effective Altruism: Growing Bigger Vs. Growing Stronger At the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit, Rob Wiblin and William MacAskill espoused how they believe potentially the best action for effective altruism as a movement proper would take is increasing its own population size. I call this "growing bigger". Ostensibly, this is also in large part the current mission of the Centre for Effective Altruism, and its "Effective Altruism Outreach". Anna Salamon of the Center For Applied Rationality seemed skeptical of this approach as best use of recursion to improve the movement. She espoused the perspective that supporters of effective altruism, both as individuals and as a whole community, might be better to ensure the community self-improves, increasing the movement's legitimate self-confidence that it can achieve the good outcomes desired. In other words, she posits increasing the good each effective altruist can do, and the absolute good expected from per individual would be the way to go. I call this "growing stronger". Understanding the semantic distinction between "growing bigger" and growing stronger" seems to me crucial when discussing the "(movement) growth" of effective altruism".

Research Into Social Movements Over the last year, I've observed multiple individuals independent of the Centre for Effective Altruism suggesting how social movements have historically grown and succeeded be studied so effective altruism can learn how successfully it could replicate such methods. However, I've noticed a dearth of updates or coordination on such a project. More than researching myself, I'd be reaching out to the community to note and report on who what others have learned thus far.

Blogging Carnival: Role Models I'm going to propose the monthly topic for the effective altruism blogging carnival for February be "Role Models". If this doesn't come to pass, though, I want to write about it anyway. It's a topic which excites me, so I'm willing to take suggestions for (co-)authoring a profile on an individual who has lived and acted in the spirit of effective altruism in the past or present, if not affiliated with the movement.

What Different Types of Organizations Can Do At the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit, I met multiple entrepreneurs who suggested start-ups and for-profit efforts can produce through their goods or services provide an efficient mechanism for positive social impact in addition to the money to be donated that they generate for their owners or employees. Since then, I've noticed this idea popping up more. Of course, start-ups contrast with bigger corporations. Additionally, I believe there are different types of non-profit organizations, and their differences are important. Charities doing direct work (e.g., the Against Malaria Foundation), foundations (e.g., Good Ventures, Charity Science), research think tanks (e.g., Givewell, the Centre for Effective Altruism), advocacy and awareness organizations (e.g., The Life You Can Save, Greenpeace), scientific research projects (e.g. the International Panel on Climate Change), and political advocacy (Avaaz.org, Amnesty International) are all different.

• To lump all "for-profit" types of work, and all "non-profit" types of work into two categories underrates the advantages and disadvantages of how to structure an organization driven toward a goal.
• Different types of organizations differ across nations and law codes, the cultures and traditions of their respective sectors, and their structural limitations. Effective altruism should be aware of such so it can figure out how best effectively achieve goals for a given cause.

Building Relationships With Charities Within effective altruism, there are individuals who have succeeded in earning high enough income that they can and do donate (tens of thousands) of dollars to a single charity each year. The focus of donations within of effective altruism is on charities which the community believes are working in neglected cause areas, so those charities may be smaller than more common ones (such as UNICEF or Greenpeace), and accustomed to such large donations. Owners and investors into companies maintain relationships with executives to check how well they're operating those companies. However, while donations to a charity may be analogous to a profit-seeking investment, the relationship between a (large) donor and a charity may be quite different. Effective altruism is unique in that single large donors tend to care about the transparency and technical details of charities they support more than philanthropists and donors not influenced by effective altruism. So, maintaining a mutually respectful and courteous relationship may be more different and tenuous than average. It seems a guide for those earning to give, and who build relationships with charities over time, could be useful. I don't consider myself remotely qualified to write this guide on my own, so I'll be seeking coauthors or reviewers extensively.

Building Relationships With Donors and Fundraisers There are supporters of effective altruism starting and managing unconventional non-profit organizations. I wouldn't be surprised if more of them do so in the coming years. Their financial and moral supporters may or may not be familiar with effective altruism, and non-profits that try to optimize for effectiveness. This guide would be an inverse to the one above, about how to maintain effective relationships with donors, both in general, and specifically about charities aiming to be more effective. This guide would be intended for maintaining relationships with ongoing donors, in particular ones who are concerned with and constructively critical of how a non-profit is run. How to effectively court new donors, or run successful fundraisers, seems like a separate guide. Thirdly, as they grow, non-profits aligned with effective altruism may form relationships with other organizations that boost their profile or raise funds on their behalf. How to effectively manage relations with them also seems important. Again, these are all topics on which I consider myself unqualified to write guides about, but I think are important enough for me to facilitate. So, I'll be seeking coauthors, reviewers, and experienced supporters extensively.

I created this thread on purchasing research effectively that may be of interest to folks here.

What do you think of the forum allowing private messaging and tagging people in posts?