Pagw

305Joined Sep 2018

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Mid-career climate science researcher in academia

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Pagw
· 1y ago · 1m read

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30

Pagw6d111

Just to make a point on this comment related to how the forum works, it looks like people don't like it on net, but there may be a substantial minority interested in animal welfare considerations who find it helpful (I count myself here), and therefore it would be valuable for these people. But currently it's automatically hidden as if it's spam-like and not worth reading for anyone. This seems suboptimal, and perhaps a more strict bar for hiding comments should be set. Comments with low scores are sent to the bottom of the page anyway, so it's unlikely to be that bothersome.

It may also be valuable for people to be able to see the numbers of upvotes and downvotes separately, so they can see if there's a minority of readers who appreciate their comments vs getting pure downvotes, which give different messages in terms of feedback.

Given the current forum workings, it seems like people should be cautious about downvoting comments where a substantial minority of others may disagree and think it's a useful point and wouldn't want it hidden (and use disagree voting to indicate difference of judgement).

Pagw6d104

Just thought I'd say I'm actually interested by Vasco's comment. I don't see why it's not related - the post is meant to be assessing overall cost-effectiveness (according to the title), so effects on animals are potentially relevant (edit: OK the title refers to HLI's analysis and the comment is about GiveWell's, but it applies to both, so I'd accept it). If the point were only written about elsewhere, then it could easily be missed by readers interested in this topic. That said, a fuller write up of how the meat eater problem may affect views on which charities are most cost-effective would also be helpful I think.

Pagw2mo12

Having used veganhealth.org quite a bit, I'd be interested to know what you were unhappy with there.

Pagw2mo30

The tests you're using sound quite involved. In the UK at least, there are simple and cheap blood tests you can order for vit D and iron e.g. here and here respectively, which I thought might be useful for people to know. I don't know how reliable they are, though. There look to be home vit B12 tests that are more expensive and I've not used one myself.

Pagw3mo70

"we estimate StrongMinds at roughly 6x GD" - this seems to be about 2/3 what HLI estimate the relative impact to be (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zCD98wpPt3km8aRGo/happiness-for-the-whole-household-accounting-for-household) - it's not obvious to me how and why your estimates differ - are you able to say what is the reason for the difference? (Edited to update to a more recent analysis by HLI)

Pagw3mo51

Thanks for posting that. I think a complete answer also requires addressing HStencil's comment on your post asking whether there is any risk to donations due to potential clawbacks.

Pagw4mo2916

As a subsidiary question, can anyone say how the property has been used so far eg the rough sum over meetings of number of attendees times length of meeting in days? Or some other measure of utilisation/cost saving?

Pagw4mo2313

Thanks for replying. Can you confirm for people that money donated to or through CEA is safe as far as CEA officials know (at least, as safe as it seemed before there was widespread knowledge of problems at FTX)?

Answer by PagwNov 11, 202232

My gut feeling is that people who were expecting to live on any granted money for the next few months should be able to do so until they've had time to sort out another income stream - it doesn't seem good for people to face hardship as a result of this. Using other funding sources to pay back money from FTX that has already been spent also does not seem good. I'm not sure about funding beyond that.

Pagw5mo119

It seems like there are quite a lot of people/orgs who made plans based on promised money that now seems unlikely to arrive. Is there a lesson that can be learned about how to reduce risk in grant awarding e.g. by waiting until funds are securely in the foundation's hands? Or is there no way to avoid this risk given potential clawbacks, even in cases of bankruptcy that don't involve any fraud?

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