GiveWell survey

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GiveWell survey

Postby Brian Tomasik on 2010-05-26T09:45:00

I wanted to let Felicifia members know that GiveWell is asking for feedback on priorities in a 3-minute survey.

In case anyone is curious, below is the answer I gave to the question, "What charitable causes/sectors are you most interested in?" If anyone else fills out the survey, why don't you paste your own answers to this forum?

I think the single most important cause is to propagate the meme that the suffering of animals in nature matters and should be addressed by far-future technologies.

Unfortunately, I don't know of existing organizations working on that cause, although I have toyed with the idea of starting such an organization in a few years and know of some others who may do something similar.

That specific cause probably isn't something GiveWell would ever tackle, but here are two ways it could be broadened:

1. A more general cause related to "animal welfare" that focuses on total numbers of animals impacted per dollar (so that, e.g, factory farms would obviously come out ahead of, say, dog fighting). This piece of mine might be of interest.

2. Something I would appreciate even more would be a "Research Institute" cause, because I think meta-level research on the right topics by qualified people actually has more value than direct work on a topic.

Indeed, I think you agree, because that's precisely what GiveWell is! In other words, I think donating to GiveWell is better than donating to any of your recommended causes, and similar ideas apply with respect to other areas. For instance, an institute asking questions about how activists can best promote the meme of wild-animal suffering would probably be a more cost-effective cause than any of the organizations themselves. In general, meta-level research seems neglected relative to its expected returns, in part because it has less "fuzzy" value.

As I mentioned, I currently donate pretty much exclusively to a research cause, SIAI.


Under, "If there is an important factor you feel is missing from the above list, please list that factor here," I noted, "I personally don't care about riskiness and am willing to support speculative/low-probability-high-expected-value scenarios." Basically the only criteria that mattered to me were

* Expressing my personal values through the cause I choose to support
* High potential impact per dollar (though not demonstrated impact)

although I added "demonstrable impact" as well, because for the types of causes that GiveWell tends to study, I do care very much about outside-view statistics. But for the best causes, like meta-research on cost-effectiveness, demonstrability of that sort may not be possible. (Still, even SIAI can and does keep metrics on its achieved results over time.)
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby Daniel Dorado on 2010-05-26T14:05:00

Hi Alan. I don't think GiveWell will reccomend wild-animal suffering charities. But I think it's possible they do reccomend some animal rights charities. So I filled out the survey with some words about animal rights charities.

I don't like GiveWell because they are just worried about humans for now.
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby Brian Tomasik on 2010-05-27T10:36:00

Daniel Dorado wrote:I don't like GiveWell because they are just worried about humans for now.


I agree it's unfortunate that GiveWell hasn't tackled animal-welfare causes, but given what the organization does focus on, they do a great job, so I would hardly say I don't like them -- I think they're great at what they do. You might also be interested in Holden's latest comment on this old blog post in which he says, "We do eventually want to cover animal welfare charities and help donors who have different philosophical priorities from ours."
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby Daniel Dorado on 2010-05-27T14:15:00

The main problem I see in GiveWell is that they reinforce speciesism. Most people think "only humans are important", and GiveWell support that idea when they don't say a word about animals.
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby RyanCarey on 2010-05-28T08:13:00

Sure, Givewell may reinforce speciesism to some small extent. However, its ideology is broader than that. It's also practical. It's utilitarian. When most people encounetr Givewell's methods, it's not the specisism that becomes obvious. Specisism is hardly unique to Givewell. Rather, it's Givewell's utilitarianism that stands out. Givewell promotes caring for people equally. And if the concern of the public can stretch over national a nd contininental borders, it may one day extend to other species as well.

I'm keen for Givewell to appraise organisations that care for other species. That would be a very good thing. However, don't label every organisation that focusses on humans speciesist. Promoting the care of animals to the public in such an unreceptive climate may be useless or even counterproductive!
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby Daniel Dorado on 2010-05-28T17:21:00

RyanCarey wrote:However, don't label every organisation that focusses on humans speciesist. Promoting the care of animals to the public in such an unreceptive climate may be useless or even counterproductive!


Hi Ryan. Thank you for your comment.

I take the public into account when I defend animals and charities. And I know it's hard for most people to listen to someone saying "don't give your money to the people, give it to the animals". So I wouldn't say that GiveWell is speciesist to the general public, but I think it's not a big problem to say it in an utilitarian forum. Moreover I think this is an interesting issue to be analyzed for utilitarians.

IMO if an utilitarian promotes GiveWell to the public, at least she can to say something about the absence of the animal-rights issue in that project.
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby Daniel Dorado on 2010-12-27T18:24:00

Good news about GiveWell and animal charities: http://blog.givewell.org/2010/12/27/ani ... charities/

I'm at odd with Holden in several aspects, but I appreciate that message like a right movement.
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby RyanCarey on 2010-12-27T23:39:00

It's a good post, isn't it Daniel D. In retrospect, I think my first post was worded rather too strongly, or perhaps it was completely wrong. There's plenty of lobbying to be done towards organisations like Givewell to make them less speciesist. And it's a good post from Holden. He's moving in the right direction as you say.
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Re: GiveWell survey

Postby LadyMorgana on 2010-12-28T08:35:00

Yay, I filled in their survey the day before asking them to do research into animal charities - thank you, thank you, Daniel D, for making me aware that they're listening and considering moving in this direction!
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind" -- Bertrand Russell, Autobiography
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