"small" is relative. AMF manages significantly more donations compared with most local NGOs, but it does one thing and has <20 staff. That's very different from Save the Children or the Red Cross or indeed the Global Fund type organizations I was comparing it with, that have more campaigns and programmes to address local needs but also more difficulty in evaluating how effective they are overall.  I understand that below the big headline "recommended" charities Give well does actually make smaller grants to some smaller NGOs too, but these will still be difficult to access for many

Are EA cause priorities too detached from local realities? Shouldn’t people closest to a problem have more say in solving it?

I think this is the most interesting question, and I would be interested in your thoughts about how to make that easier.^[1]

I think part of the reason EA doesn't do this is simply because it doesn't have those answers, being predominantly young Western people centred around certain universities and tech communities^[2] And also because EA (and especially the part of EA that is interested in global health) is very numbers oriented.

This is also somewhat related to a second point you raise regarding political and social realities including corruption: it is quite easy for GiveWell or OpenPhilanthropy to identify that infectious diseases are likely to be real, that a small international NGO is providing evidence that they're actually buying and shipping the nets or pills that deal with it, and that on average given infectious disease prevalence they will save a certain amount of lives. Some other programmes that may deliver results highly attuned to local needs are more difficult to evaluate (and local NGOs are not always good at dealing with the complex requests for evidence for foreign evaluators even if they are very effective at their work). The same is true of large multinational organizations that have both local capacity building programs and the ability to deal with complex requests from foreign evaluators, but are also so big that Global Fund type issues can happen...

1. ^{^}

   I would note that there is a regular contributor to this forum @NickLaing who is based in Uganda and focused on trying to solve local problems, although I don't believe he receives very much funding compared with other EA causes, and also @Anthony Kalulu, a rural farmer in eastern Uganda who has an ambitious plan for a grain facility to solve problems in Busoaga, but seems to be getting advice from the wrong people on how to fund it... 

2. ^{^}

   This is also, I suspect, part of the reason many but not all EAs think AI is so important...

Just realise that betting on crypto is like betting on a casino. Probably worse, if it's a memecoin which has apparently lost nearly all of its value in the last two months. Then decide whether something like a casino but probably worse is how you would want to invest the last $10k which you could still help your fellow farmers with.

FWIW I remember liking your original post and your ambition. I might have some ability to assist with grant application writing. But only if you spend any funds you can get on helping fellow Ugandans, not crypto!

What section do you put Marco Rubio in?

The side that defied a court order to eliminate 90% of USAID programs this week including all the lifesaving programs described above, with the name Marco Rubio referenced as being the decision-making authority in the termination letters.

I'm not sure the number of statements he's made in favour of some of these programs being lifesaving before termination letters were sent out in his name is a mitigating factor. And if he's not actually making the decisions it's a moot point: appealing to Rubio's better nature doesn't seem to be a way forward.

Where was USAID mentioned in the PDF you linked?

My bad, I should have linked to this one 

FWIW I agree with your point that people who are broadly neutral/sympathetic are more likely to be sympathetic to a broad explainer than a "denunciation".

But I worded my post quite carefully, it's "people who like Musk's cuts to US Aid and AI Safety" I don't think overlap with EA. I don't imagine either of the EA-affiliated people you linked to would object to EAs pointing out that Musk shutting down AI safety institutes might be the opposite of what he says he cares about. And I don't think people who think foreign aid is a big scam and AI should be unregulated are putative EAs (whether they trust Musk or not!)

I don't think a "denunciation" is needed, but I don't think avoiding criticising political figures because they're sensitive, powerful and have some public support is a way forward either.

I'm pushing back more at 80k ranking it as a priority above the likes of global health or mental health rather than concluding it doesn't have any value and nobody should be studying it! 

I mean, something like CleanSeaNet probably is cost effective using standard EA [animal welfare] metrics, it's certainly very effective at stopping oil dumping in the Med, but I wouldn't treat that sort of program as a higher level of priority than any other area of environmental law enforcement (and it's one which is already relatively easy to get space agency funding for....). 

Well I did say I went further than you! 

Agree there are valid space policy considerations (and I could add to that list)^[1], but I think lack of tractability is a bigger problem than neglect.^[2] Everyone involved in space already knows ASAT weapons are a terrible idea, they're technically banned since 1966, but yes, tests have happened despite that because superpowers gotta superpower. As with many other international relations problems - and space is more important than some of those and less than others -  the problem is lack of coordination and enforceability rather than lack of awareness that problems might exist. Similarly Elon's obligation to deorbit Starlink at end of life is linked to SpaceX's FCC licence and parallel ESA regulation exists.^[3] If he decides to gut the FCC and disregard it, it won't be from lack of study into congested orbital space or lack of awareness the problem exists. 

1. ^{^}

   "Examine environmental effects of deorbiting masses of satellites into the mesosphere and potential implications for future LEO deorbiting policy"  would be at the top of my personal list for timeliness and terrestrial impact...

2. ^{^}

   And above all, am struggling to see the marginal impact being bigger than health. as 80k suggested. 

3. ^{^}

   It's also not in SpaceX's interests to jeopardise LEO because they extract more economic value from that space than anyone else...

Charities removing false claims from their website is usually a good thing that should happen as soon as possible.

The exception to this would be if they are removing them to deny the claim was ever made and attack your credibility, but a mixture of screenshots, archive links and sharing reviews in advance with other trusted third parties who don't have any stake in those companies should be enough to make that approach very unlikely to work.

Frankly it's much lower risk for charities to respond with "we have corrected this. these are our excuses. but thanks anyway" even if its a really bad excuse than try to claim they never said anything

That's more than I thought, but it's also a decade ago when Elon had very different priorities, and I'm not sure that EA has any image problems associated with people thinking EAs basically want what Elon wants. (I don't think the Transgender Law Center needs to worry their name might be sullied by his donation to them in 2011 either!)

I largely agree with this, and would go further and say I think that in most cases I don't think space governance is even a solution to the problems humanity want to solve, as much as a background consideration that will need to be taken into account if deploying some potential solutions, and one which you probably need to speak with the specialists if you are deploying those solutions.

"Space governance" can easily be compared to international policy because much of it is a niche specialism within that category (especially the "what about the future of the solar system" questions that seem to animate longtermists). For more practical near term considerations like monitoring the environment or crop health or human rights or threats from passing asteroids, space assets are just tools, albeit tools that are much more useful with someone who understands how to interpret them in legal contexts and how to communicate with policymakers. Other aspects are just about how governments regulate companies' activity, with a safety aspect that's closer to the "should we consider this 1 in 10000 possibility of hitting a person" than preventing nuclear armageddon.^[1] 

Even as one of the few people actually likely to apportion [commercial R&D] grant funding towards a research that could be construed as "space governance" in the next couple of years, I'd really struggle to rate it as being as important for maximising global impact as 80k Hours does.^[2] A potentially interesting and rewarding career which can have positive outcomes if people actually listen to you, yes . Amongst the top ten things a talented individual could do to positively impact human lives, nope.

P.S. thanks for linking your paper, I'll add it to my reading list.

1. ^{^}

   I mean, Kessler syndrome would have a huge impact on some critical technology short term, but that's a risk addressed by developing technical risk mitigation and debris clearing solutions, not by policy papers for regulators who are very aware of its threat already.

2. ^{^}

   More impactful at the margin than global health!