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All of Alexandre Zajic's Comments + Replies

Idea: call-your-representative newsletter
Alexandre Zajic2y5
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It is surprisingly so. I had interned for a Congressional office years back and they do take letters more seriously than you'd expect, and that's at the national level, let alone a state/local. This is for reasons of imperfect information: everybody's running around so much and resources are so scattered that nobody really has a view of what their voters care about, so the loudest, most organized voices have surprising sway. Especially if it's a non-polarizing issue, this could definitely work. The key is to have a specific bill that you want voted up or d... (read more)

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Results of a survey of international development professors on EA
Alexandre Zajic2y2
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Wow, I'm surprised at how off the numbers are for the charity multipliers and the cost to save lives. Do you have any explanations for how they could be so divergent from EA views? You mention they're highly specialized, but I'm still surprised if their answers mirror the public's guesses more than EA's

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Jack_S
2y
Although many IDev professors (estimate: ~70%) are likely just poorly calibrated, and have no incentives to look into the cost-effectiveness of interventions, many who do know about CEAs might underestimate. For "the cost to save the life of a child" question, an IDev policy expert might take a different perspective. In my IDev masters, one prof in his 70s explained  that, if you've already paid the fixed costs of getting into the decision making process, it's very often possible to find low-hanging fruit policy changes that save more lives and cost less money (bottom right quadrant in the picture below, taken from one of his classes). 
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Alejandro Acelas
2y
If I wanted to be charitable to their answer of the cost of saving a life I'd point out that $5000 is roughly the cost of saving a life reliably and at scale. If you relax any of those conditions, saving a life might be cheaper (e.g. Givewell sometimes finances opportunities more cost-effective than AMF, or perhaps you're optimistic about some highly leveraged interventions like political advocacy). However, I wouldn't bet that this phenomenon would be behind a significant fraction of the divergence of their answers.
The importance of getting digital consciousness right
Alexandre Zajic2y4
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I think this is a very useful post. New information for me: considering apparent digital minds as an X-risk, and that the incentives for companies would be towards creation of zombies rather than conscious beings. I also didn't know the current state of consciousness research, that was valuable too. Thanks for sharing!

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EA needs money more than ever
Alexandre Zajic2y3
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I think both the total view (my argument) and the marginal view (your argument, as I understand it) converge when you think about the second-order effects of your donations on only the most effective causes. You're right that I argue in this post from the total view of the community, and am effectively saying that going from $50b to $100b is more valuable now than it would have been at any time in the past. But I think this logic also applies to individuals if you believe that your donations will displace other donations to the second-best option, as I thi... (read more)

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