NickLaing
Bio
Participation1
I'm a doctor working towards the dream that every human will have access to high quality healthcare. I'm a medic and director of OneDay Health, which has launched 53 simple but comprehensive nurse-led health centers in remote rural Ugandan Villages. A huge thanks to the EA Cambridge student community in 2018 for helping me realise that I could do more good by focusing on providing healthcare in remote places.
How I can help others
Understanding the NGO industrial complex, and how aid really works (or doesn't) in Northern Uganda
Global health knowledge
Posts 25
Comments1609
Thanks @mal_graham🔸 this is super helpful and makes more sense now. I think it would make your argument far more complete if you put something like your third and fourth paragraphs here in your main article.
And no I'm personally not worried about interventions being ecologically inert.
As a side note its interesting that you aren't putting much effort into making interventions happen yet - my loose advice would be to get started trying some things. I get that you're trying to build a field, but to have real-world proof of this tractability it might be better to try something sooner rather than later? Otherwise it will remain theory. I'm not too fussed about arguing whether an intervention will be difficult or not - in general I think we are likely to underestimate how difficult an intervention might be.
Show me a couple of relatively easy wins (even small-ish ones) an I'll be right on board :).
Me: "Well at least this study shows no association beteween painted houses and kids' blood lead levels. That's encouraging!"
Wife: "Nothing you have said this morning is encouraging NIck. Everything that I've heard tells me that our pots, our containers and half of our hut are slowly poisoning our baby"
Yikes touche...
(Context we live in Northern Uganda)
Thanks @Lead Research for Action (LeRA) for this unsettling but excellently written report. Our house is full of aluminium pots and green plastic food containers. Now to figure out what to do about it!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pqRUeejiRCX2bXekeZnL0zGi34zbK23w/view
Wow this is brilliant thank you!
To add to this problem, I think that more uncertain causes are more likely to have overestimated point-estimates even errors non-withstanding. This is for a few reasons, one because we are by nature more optimistic than reality about small probabilities, and that lower quality studies such as cross sectional studies and cohort tend to overestimate effects. When better studies like RCTs or even larger cohorts are done effects often become smaller or disappear.
Unfortunately for many interventions the best data we have is low quality data, and we anchor on those likely overestimated values.
Thanks for the meeting, appreciate it a lot! One observation I have is there seemed to be 2 groups of people in the meeting, that could speak the same language with each other but not so well in between. I still gained a bit from
1. AI Coders: People who were focused on coding and building applications. They use Codex and Claude code (maybe down Clawdbot...), have multiple windows open and use words like "skills". They utilise AI to the max 25 hours a day.
2: Everyday optimisers People who use mainly the browser AI for a wide range of research / writing / image / organisation tasks. Maybe they a $20 a month subscription, and might use it a little every day or a few times a week.
I'm very much in group 2, and I still gained a bit from talking to group 1 but I think the use cases are as much of a difference as ability here.
Thanks again for organising if theres more I will come again :)
There is however rising appetite for 1v1s. I just went to an online meeting about Skoll world forum, which is probably the biggest NGO and Funder conference in the world. Both speakers emphasized 1v1s being the most important aspect, and advised only going to other sessions at times when 1v1s weren't books.
So maybe the GHD ecosystem at least is wakign up a bit...
""[...] not getting a reward may create frustration, which is nothing but another form of pain." From my human experience, I can be living "net positive" while being extremely frustrated about something.
In general I think direct observation of individuals is a fantastic way forward. Maybe even the only way forward here. Theoretical arguments make so many assumptions I fee llike I could argue all sides here.
I'm amazed EAs haven't funded some individual animal observation stuff. Put a small cam and a fitbit on a deer or other prey animal and see what they get up to? My guess is that the life would look more positive than we expect.
I'm going to guess the total donated will be 30% of this by EA funders, and a low percentage by the rest. I think your conservative number is WAY too low based on previous pledge fulfillment rates. I get that it's just a claude generation though
But that's still 2 billion dollars at least, so I've updated positively on the amount of money that might go to good causes. Thanks for this @Ozzie Gooen strong upvote.
Thanks for the update, and the reasons for the name change make s lot of sense
Instinctively i don't love the new name. The word "coefficient" sounds mathsy/nerdy/complicated, while most people don't know what the word coefficient actually means. The reasoning behind the name does resonate through and i can understand the appeal.
But my instincts are probably wrong though if you've been working with an agency and the team likes it too.
All the best for the future Coefficient Giving!