All of sulodt's Comments + Replies
Because we could work on more effective causes with these resources. See Michael's
The difference probably matters even more in some causes—I would posit that SCI probably does 10,000 to a million times more good than the best arts charity. That means if you can convince one person to give to SCI, that's as good as convincing 10,000 arts enthusiasts to make donations more effectively within the arts. One of these sounds a lot easier than the other.
Spreading EA thinking within domains is an idea for an intervention in the EA outreach cause. I don't think the good per unit time invested (=impact) can compete with already existing EA interventions
Yes, I should have phrased these things more clearly.
a) The evidence we currently have in this world suggests that the usual EA causes have an extraordinarily higher impact than other causes. That is the entire reason EA is working on them: because they do the most good per unit time invested.
Indeed there might be even better causes but the most effective way to find them is, well, to look for them in the most efficient way possible which is (cause prioritisation) research. Spreading EA-thinking in other domains doesn't provide nearly as much data.
b) I ju...
Imagine chewing gum is an unbelievably effective cause: it's life-saving impact is many orders of magnitude higher than walking. If we want to maximise chewing gum to the fullest we cannot have any distractions, not even potential or little ones. Walking has opportunity costs and prevents us from extremely super effective gum chewing.
This piece is about how those resources can be collectively deployed most effectively, which is a different question from "how can I do the most good."
Michael's post still applies. Collective resources are just a...
Finally, embracing domain-specific effective altruism diversifies the portfolio of potential impact for effective altruism.
There is no need for a more diverse portfolio. There is no evidence to suggest that there are causes higher in expected value than are being worked on. If anything, the most effective way to maximise the EA portfolio is by doing cause prioritisation research, but this already is one of the most impactful causes.
...Even within the EA movement currently, there are disagreements about the highest-potential causes to champion. Indeed, on
The former; outreach is great. It would probably be better if you argued in the thread above to collect your thoughts in one place, since I share Ben Todd's opinion and he put it much better than I could. I enjoyed reading your well thought out post by the way!