All of Tejas Subramaniam's Comments + Replies

This post by Carl Shulman is very similar to this, I think.

Somewhat relevant (takes the hard proves-too-much stance): https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/dear_identity_p.html

She co-authored a piece a few months back about finding AI safety emotionally compelling. I’d be interested in her thoughts on the following two questions related to that!

• How worried should we be about suspicious convergence between AI safety being one of the most interesting/emotionally compelling questions to think about and it being the most pressing problem? There used to be a lot of discussion around 2015 about how it seemed like people were working on AI safety because it’s really fun and interesting to think about, rather than because it’s actually

Thanks for writing this up! I disagree for a few reasons:

• This feels more like a problem at the point between “alternative proteins have scaled up and we’ve replaced a bunch of meat” and “this results in a meat ban.” It seems possible to me that moral advocacy efforts can happen after alternative proteins have scaled up, but before there are laws to stop factory farming for food entirely. I don’t think alternative proteins replacing, say, 80% of meat will result in people thinking non-meat uses of animals is morally okay in a lock-in kind of way. 
• I thi

These two pieces are of interest. Lots of similar conclusions.

Thanks for this! You may also find this post of interest.

Benjamin Todd makes some similar points here. 

Greg Mankiw’s introductory econ textbook has a good explanation of a similar point:

LeBron James is a great athlete. One of the best basketball players of all time, he can jump higher and shoot better than most other people. Most likely, he is talented at other physical activities as well. For example, let’s imagine that LeBron can mow his lawn faster than anyone else. But just because he can mow his lawn fast, does this mean he should? 

Let’s say that LeBron can mow his lawn in 2 hours. In those same 2 hours, he could film a television commercial and e... (read more)

Thanks for the link! I will look into this soon. 

My immediate reaction is that that depends on the specific objectives of the advocacy organizations, as well as who they’re aiming to influence. 

For example, the article mentions the patent waiver a lot. While this is (I think) a point of difference between Manya and me, I’m currently unsure (50-50 split, in fact) about the sign of the effect of the patent waiver, and pretty convinced the magnitude is small (and that it obscures the deeper problems with vaccine supply). 

From talking to the people helping the Swasti fundraiser in question, they seem to be working on data and coordination, but appear to be working separately on procurement and distribution! In any case, our point was more that Swasti and Swasth are separate organizations (and the similar name seems like a coincidence). 

That’s why our third recommendation (not in order of importance) under oxygen is the Swasth/ACT Grants fundraiser! From our post: “Swasth’s Oxygen for India concentrator fundraiser on Milaap (for the price at which they are buying oxygen concentrators, room for more funding, and transparency about procurement and funding).”

From a conversation with the people running the Swasti Oxygen for All fundraiser, our guess is the two are equally cost-effective. 

Hi! So the Swasti Oxygen for All fundraiser does not offer a tax deduction for the United States (I asked them recently). Swasth’s Oxygen for India fundraiser offers tax deductions for donations from the United States for donations above $1,000 (the details are specified in the link). We are happy to check about other countries!

We really appreciate it!

Thanks a lot for this estimate! I will link your comment on our post. 

I’ve added Swasth as a recommendation, because it seems to purchase concentrators at lower prices and seems to have more room for funding at the moment, and because our concerns on accessible payment options are likely less relevant among EAs (as opposed to the high school and college students who will likely attend our debate lecture series). Thanks for pointing it out!

I don’t think the two are related!

We actually looked at Swasth and think it’s another very promising opportunity – definitely comparable to our other two recommendations – but we didn’t recommend it because it only accepted the payment method of a bank transfer for foreign donations, which could be less accessible (particularly for the lecture series that we originally wrote this for). 

In general, however, it looks quite good, both for the prices at which Swasth is getting concentrators and given their focus on concentrators, which we think are the most cost-effective option. 

Thanks for sharing! Manya and I will look this up/check the actual size of the oxygen tanks and times, and see how it affects Jeff’s model. 

Thanks for the comment! We are honestly quite unsure about the margin,  especially because the cost-effectiveness analyses we have access to are about the cause area and not a model for the specific charitable donations. 

Our guess is that donations to oxygen likely beat GiveWell top charities – here are Jeff Coleman’s calculations for the GiveIndia’s various programs for magnitudes.  It’s hard to give a precise estimate partly because each oxygen concentrator or cylinder, for instance, is a fixed cost which can be used for a while (and we‘re... (read more)

My  guesses at the moment are that: 

• Oxygen concentrators are more cost-effective than B-type cylinders, and much more cost-effective than ventilators or D-type cylinders, but there’s a lot more uncertainty around oxygen generators. This is both due to Coleman’s calculations and transport constraints. Even though concentrators are used in less severe cases, they can prevent cases from becoming severe enough to require hospitalization, given serious bed shortages. 
• Effective Indian charities (or ones that operate more extensively in India) are

Was so surprised and happy to see this when just scrolling through EA Forum today! Thanks a lot for conducting it, I really enjoyed competing. The high school pilot program looks incredible!