Super interesting, and great to see this comparison. I'll be particularly interested in seeing the results farther down the line, as other studies suggest that the effects of UBI tend to be fairly short-term.

 For future write-ups in this forum, would it be possible to include mentions of the effect sizes directly in the write-up? They're available in the results table that you linked to, but it's nice to be able to easily see from the write-up that diet diversity increased by 4% (long-term UBI); 5% (short-term UBI), and 2% (large lump sum), in additio... (read more)

It'd be interesting to see how Toby Ord and others would update the likelihood of the different events in light of the past two years. I'm thinking specifically re: 

• The response to the pandemic, including greater preparedness(?), more info about state capacity to respond, more info about the potential of mRNA
• Nuclear war, in light of the current situation in Ukraine.

Saw this and thought of Open Philanthropy's interest in South Asian air quality: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/paying-farmers-stubble-burning-pollution-7566129/ 

Article copied below for ease of access:

How to get farmers to not burn crop residue

Kelsey Jack, Namrata Kala, Rohini Pande, Seema Jayachandran write: An effective policy solution will be one that takes into account their preferred method and recognises that they are making a financial calculation.

Written by Kelsey Jack , Namrata Kala , Rohini Pande , Seema Jayachandran |
Upd... (read more)

Really happy to see that this seems to have worked so well!

Would it be possible to clarify how MacKenzie Scott's donation of $50 million was counted in the above figures and how the numbers change if one were to not include it?

For the EA community: what other usually internationally facing organizations do you think could benefit from trying this approach?

A common critique of universal cash transfers is that it goes to people who don't need the money. In Israel, this backlash led to people donating the money they received (see https://t.co/tu0XWua1Kv?amp=1. This arguably increases the precision and reduces waste.

The upcoming 1,400 USD checks* seem like a good opportunity for EA-aligned orgs to raise a fair amount of donations - particularly GiveDirectly given how easy it is for people to make the connection between the money they receive and GiveDirectly's model.  Are they gearing up for this?

*Apparent... (read more)

Really interesting thoughts! Thanks for writing them up.

Disclaimer: The below is descriptive, not normative, and chiefly focuses on people and organisations outside of EA

This may be overly cynical, but I think some of the reasons you list in favour of ToCs also account for why they often either don't exist or aren't publicly available, i.e. there's a misalignment between what's good for society (what you're getting at with "whether they should exist") and what the organisation and/or researchers consider to be their self-... (read more)

Thanks, was uncertain how to phrase that and evidently should've phrased it more clearly. Having lots of independently operating farms that aren't automated is more resilient (but perhaps less efficient) than relying upon a few large, highly productive, automated farms, because the failure of one has less of an impact on the whole.

Sure, sorry for not having spelled it out in the initial post. It's related to doing the most good in that overuse of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizer have serious impacts on the health of soil, water, people, insects, birds, amphibians, and mammals. Further, by reducing soil degradation and increasing the efficiency of farming, one could also reduce the pressure to clear forests for new farming zones while simultaneously increasing the earth's carrying capacity. Additionally, reducing fertilizer overuse could mean cutting back ... (read more)

I agree that it could be helpful to provide more estimates of the likelihoods of the various scenarios. I'm not sure what to make of a statement like "It is expected that the number of people on the brink of starvation will double from 135 million to 260 million within the next few months", especially when the WFP quote was "the World Food Programme analysis shows that, due to the Coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020." When I see "x could happen", I don't understand that to mean "we expect x to happen. Thanks!