Thanks for taking the time to engage with these arguments and provide detailed responses.
I would argue against the fundamental premise of the arguments that you set out here. As I understand your position, the need and value for transparency in donor characteristics is something whose value should be proven. In the alternative, non-transparency is the status quo. To be frank, this troubles me. I would argue that transparency in philanthropic sources of funding should be the status quo and the onus should sit on the philanthropy to articulate why and ...
I agree that this norm does not largely exist at the moment, however, I would argue that there is a trend towards greater transparency in philanthropy (see Charity Navigator evaluations of charities and many other charity evaluator criteria that include transparency). I think part of this trend is driven by the EA movement itself and the radical transparency that is exhibited by GiveWell and Open Philanthropy, particularly when compared to funders that are older.
I would argue that transparency is fundamentally and intrinsically important in a number ...
Would you be able to provide some more details on the source of the funds, please? I understand if this may be private. However, I think being transparent about where funders are sourcing their money from is a valuable norm in the funding space.
Very exciting to see the role that Buddy will be taking on and also the influence of evidence-driven decision making in the wider philanthropic environment.
Employing a personal assistant - I understand that there was a presentation on this at the most recent EA Global conference. Also, there has been a general movement towards both acting as, and employing, personal remote assistants to support professionals with life administration and other more procedural tasks. It would be interesting to see the cost-effectiveness of this intervention.
My hypothesis is that this would be highly effective for those professions who, a) spend a disproportionate amount of time on administrative tasks, b) the opportunity cost of their time is high, c) they are highly-focused and require deep-work time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I deeply empathize with the pull to help people now, while rationally agreeing with longtermist arguments. One insight that really stood out to me was:
"One thing I’m heartened by is that working on the long run feels hard in precisely the way I think we should expect effective altruism to feel hard"
This intuitively makes sense to me, particularly within the framing of neglectedness. Similarly however, I do wander whether the opposite could be true and whether the sense of something feeling hard may be our intuition p...
Thanks for sharing. Firstly, as someone who went through the Yale EA Fellowship, I have to thank the organizers for their thoughtfulness through all stages of the Fellowship.
I have two questions: 1) how have you thought about DEI in the selection process and minimizing any risks associated with unconscious bias or other systemic bias that may lead to certain individuals not being admitted to the program. 2) Has the team considered leveraging an expimental or quasi-experimental approach in thinking about how the selection process may influence the engagement of the cohort.
What decision-making frameworks did (and have) you find to be generally be more successful and persuasive?
For example, did you find that the use of data and evidence led to a higher likelihood of aligning disparate stakeholders? What role did anecdote / story have? Did you observe median voter theorem to hold when decisions had to be made?
This was a great summary of US foreign aid. I appreciate the research that went into this to synthesize deeply yet succinctly the key features of the system. I recently read Prof Angus Deaton's book, 'The Great Escape' in which he argues against broad based foreign aid, especially in the form that is described in this piece. I key element of his argument (as I understood it) is that there is a correlation between countries that receive aid and countries that depend on aid. Prof Deaton goes on to argue that those countries that are receiving aid are the one...
Fascinating read and potential concept, especially given what we have witnessed in the US over the past few months. I am interested in the framing of this piece around 'collapse' and more specifically how 'collapse' may be differentiated from a more general reduction in relative power? Is there something specific about a 'collapse' that differentiates it from the standard tectonic shifts of power that we have observed over the course of all human history that makes prioritization more important?
In my opinion, the framing of a cause prioritization aro...
Thanks all for synthesizing these thoughts and laying out the team’s plan for the upcoming year. I look forward to reading more around how the team’s thoughts progress on these important questions. I understand that defining and subsequently determining ‘key institutions’ is a priority area for the team and so to the extent these still may be being considered please feel free to ignore. I have some questions regarding institutions as a vector for driving effective change.
What would you consider to be the other main decision making vectors (I am imagi...
A very interesting read, thanks for preparing. Is there any research into whether those who do not have access to telecommunications technology in these LMICs actually demand or desire access to this technology?
There is a risk here that we may be imposing our biases on potential beneficiaries that I believe would be helpful to investigate further. I could plausibly see a world where there is a significant demand for the secondary benefits that arise from telecommunication technology access.
However, similarly, I could imagine plausible situations where the 3-9% of individuals that you referenced may have strong preferences for their status quo existing lifestyle and technology situation.