Effective Altruism Forum

Comments

Effective Altruism Forum

Comments 17

Sorted by

New & upvoted

Hauke Hillebrandt

4

Great that you're working on this!

I had similar thoughts on Romania, which allows you to donate a certain amount of your income tax to charity (so you just fill in a form and then, at no cost to you whatsoever, your income tax is diverted to a charity of your choice). At first glance, this is an amazing opportunity, but then you realize that Romania has so many problems of its own. But Effective altruism means different things in different countries. If the 'give to developing countries charities' EA meme just doesn't work in one country and some other does, 'give to the most effective charity working within the country' for example, then that's the most effective thing you can do there.

There's a recent paper which is sort of the DCP for noncommunicable disorders but only for Mexico, with some very low $ per DALY averted numbers:

http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/344/bmj.e355.full.pdf

maybe you could convince people to focus on any of these high effectiveness areas that they mention.

1

Thanks :)

But Effective altruism means different things in different countries. If the 'give to developing countries charities' EA meme just doesn't work in one country and some other does, 'give to the most effective charity working within the country' for example, then that's the most effective thing you can do there.

This is a very good idea and I was already planning on moving on that direction with EA in Spanish. I researched many charities and giving opportunities in Latin America. Unfortunately, I didn’t find many exceptional ones, though there are some organizations that are decent enough.

I was about to start talking about charities in Latin America when I decided to stop the project for the moment. This had to do with the fact that I considered that the project was not very worthwhile, as I mentioned on the text, but also because I lacked a full dedicated team to work with me. We were a few people working on our spare time on this, and most of us were busy with other EA activities.

If I start the project again sometime (with a larger team, more time and funding), I will definitely start promoting the best local charities of each country, among many other things.

[anonymous]

2

Interesting insight into how some EA advocates view things....

So the author tries for a mere five months to convey something and change the world, and concludes s/he has seen enough to title an introspective article as "Why EA won’t succeed in Spanish-speaking countries yet" and to assume entire things about entire populations of entire countries, and further, to say:

Do you think that spreading effective altruism in Spanish is very valuable?

Should I persist with that project in the future? I realize that if I don’t do it, either nobody else will, or the person that would replace me would very likely be worse at it.

Do EA folks think change (or even transmission of ideas) is a matter of a few persons working for a few months? Do they think that if they did not succeed in such a time-frame with their chosen approach, others are even more likely to fail? Do they think that vague intention can translate into life changes in such a brief time?

Every country has rich people and poor. The post treats everyone in Spanish-speaking countries as poor, as persons who "won't" give. To quote:

Spanish-speaking countries have a Low GDP, which means that people don’t have much money to give. Even if they agree that global poverty is very bad and that we should do something about it, they won’t get involved because they usually don’t have money to give and they have some problems themselves. This alone makes the project less worthwhile.

Note the "people" instead of "most persons", the "won't get involved" and other, very authoritative/ assertive phrases used to generalize entire populations of entire countries.

Contrast this with how some EA advocates talk about how even a humbly earning person in, say, USA, can help eradicate world poverty by sparing a few dollars (that Starbucks coffee, for example). So, the USA segment has individuals with varying capacity, and every contribution is welcome, but that's not how persons in this other segment are viewed.

Is the post saying there are no persons in Spanish-speaking countries with more than the equivalent of a dollar to spare? Or not enough persons to make it worthwhile trying to reach them?

For a data- and analysis-driven movement like EA, I'd expect more clarity in language and thought from its advocates.

I dare say this post is intended as an opener for an involved discussion. To me, (I am not an EA), the language and slant of this post seems naive and ill-advised. Why would I take a cause seriously if its advocates are so unrealistic as to expect society to show visible change so easily? Change needs a long-term commitment, not the work of a few people for a duration of a few months. As for that title, it counters any feeble diversity attempts EA may make. This is a publicly accessible page, and in a forum that may be seen as a voice of EA.

(Note: I am a mere passerby in this forum and may not check back to respond to comments to this comment.)

Owen Cotton-Barratt

2

Thanks for taking the time to write this. Outside criticism is really useful, and while I'm sure that the original poster really meant something like the weaker versions you suggest, this is a great reminder to be careful about tone and in general to claim no more than we mean.

[anonymous]

0

Well, thanks, Owen. A small addendum that I peeped in to add...

This post ranks in the top five in a Google Search on "effective altruism spanish".

In a comment above, the post author says

...want to say that the title of my text might be a bit misleading because we do have good reasons to believe that an EA movement in Spain would be worth it.

... Then why use such a title? What's the merit of a misleading, clickbait style sweeping title that can put off people, if the author himself does not agree with it and does not stand by it himself?

Surely this sort of sensationalism is counter to the rational, data-driven approach that EA supposedly stands for.

1

I do stand by the title (in the sense that I don't think it's false) because I added a "yet". I think that EA in spanish-speaking countries is quite far from getting really started. At the very least, six months. And it's very likely it will only catching on little by little if I decide to work full time on this with a strong team. Due to the enormous talent constraint, it seems unlikely that it will happen soon.

I think that the title may lead to misunderstandings and that it is quite problematic, but it certainly isn't wrong. Since It leads to misunderstanding, I regret choosing it, and you are right when you point out the problems with it.

0

Hi not-an-ea. I completely agree with you when you say that some aspects of my article are problematic!

From my perspective, many of the claims that I made seem very reasonable. This is because I researched all these issues well and I know a lot about Latin America and Its people. I lived all my life here, after all.

The problem is that I tried to do a very brief summary here, so I didn’t offer all the evidence to back up my claims. I merely talked about what I think based on my knowledge so far.

If there is enough interest on this topic, I would be willing to write a “full report”, including most of my arguments and evidence for my claims.

So the author tries for a mere five months to convey something and change the world, and concludes s/he has seen enough to title an introspective article as "Why EA won’t succeed in Spanish-speaking countries yet"

In fact, five months of work is a decent time frame to evaluate what is the future of the project and how the public responds.

The title also doesn’t seem as extreme when you consider that sadly I'm the only EA writer in the entire continent of Latin America. If I stop writing and working on this, then the movement can’t succeed in Latin America yet. It’s literally impossible for it to succeed because it depends on me for now. A new writer may show up but it seems very unlikely to happen in the next few months.

The title is true, but I shouldn’t have done it. You are right when you say that it may be problematic.

Why would I take a cause seriously if its advocates are so unrealistic as to expect society to show visible change so easily?

I didn’t expect society to show visible change easily. I’ve been keeping a very close eye on how the public responded to each of our texts about EA and I concluded that it was going to be very tough and that I could do better things for now.

Incidentally, while I didn’t expect animal activists to change easily with the work of a mere five months, they really changed a lot. It was a huge change in the education and ideas of animal activists of Chile and Argentina. Those fast changes really surprised me. We hit a nerve there. With EA, however, we didn’t. The difference between the public’s response towards effective animal activism and EA focused on global poverty was like night and day.

I understand very well what failed, why it failed and how to present the case for EA in Spanish-speaking countries in a better way. I talk a bit about this in some other comments on this article, and I will talk about it in more detail in other texts.

I truly hope that you join effective altruism. You seem like a very smart person, and your comment was useful. If you don't like the thoughts on this article and my comments, please remember that I don't represent the whole movement :)

[anonymous]

0

I must confess I am even more confused now.

I am not even clear where you stand. For example, you say in another comment that the title is misleading but here you say:

The title is true, but I shouldn’t have done it. You are right when you say that it may be problematic.

I come from a very different background. I know many people who have devoted their lives to understand the terrain and work on social change and mindset change. I am one of them. I and my peers still find that our work throws up surprises and insights. We try, we fail, we try again slightly differently, fail differently, and the cycle goes on. And so I feel pretty disconnected with your levels of assertiveness and confidence.

I was not aware that just living in a country for a few decades (including childhood) and working on a cause for a few months can make anyone such an expert about all people in that and similar countries and that this short duration can enable enough data gathering and opinions and thoughts to reach drastic conclusions. Or to arrive at a perfect approach to use the next time around.

As I said, this is an interesting insight into EA thinking and working. It confirms to me, among other things, that EA is not for diffident plodders like me. The communication gap is so high I don't think there is much point in me in engaging any further.

Thanks for responding.

1

It's a shame that you think that EA isn't for you. We could use more people like you.

Please remember that I don't represent the whole movement. If you can and you are interested, It would be nice if you could look what other EAs have to say. You may like it a lot more.

2

Thanks for the writeup Lucas, it's particularly useful to see people openly share which meta activities that they've tried have been found unpromising. Understanding this better would be action-relevant to me and several others, so that end I have a few questions if you have time for them:

What knowledge and/or messages did you try to spread? Effective charity, or GiveWell, or effective animal activism, or broad EA under that name, or x-risk, or anything else?
In what combinations did you spread them? Did you try spreading knowledge of GiveWell without packaging it with e.g. x-risk?
How did you try to spread this, any were any particular methods notably promising or unpromising?
What concrete actions do you expect the people you spread effective animal activism to take take? Which ones do you have relatively robust evidence that they'll take?
Do you think Spain is less promising than other European countries with similar GDP? If so, why?
What do you think of the discussion under Non-English language effective altruism (including a list of venues), including of North European/historically protestant countries being particularly strong?
If someone were to try spreading broad EA or some aspect thereof in Spain, what steps would you recommend they take?

1

Hi Tom! :) I will reply each question briefly, as I'm a bit busy.

What knowledge and/or messages did you try to spread? Effective charity, or GiveWell, or effective animal activism, or broad EA under that name, or x-risk, or anything else?

We wrote about Effective Charity, Earning to Give, Deworming, Rationality and Effective animal activism in general. We also translated some popular EA texts from GiveWell, Yudkowsky and Scott.

In what combinations did you spread them? Did you try spreading knowledge of GiveWell without packaging it with e.g. x-risk?

We talked little about x-risk. That topic was on a separate introductory essay that I wrote. We tried to avoid mixing x-risk with other topics for strategic reasons.

We always had tact with inferential distances, so we didn't combine incompatible or controversial topics. We tried to separate things and to make everything accessible.

How did you try to spread this, any were any particular methods notably promising or unpromising?

My most successful texts always had at least a few of these:

Good images of animals Humor and silly stories or jokes Strong encouraging messages for activists Controversial points that also automatically felt correct

I wrote a text called "Introduction to the science of rationality" and It's by far the less successful one in the whole site. It didn't have a single one of those elements. Many texts about effective animal activism which did have those elements had much more success.

My advice is that telling stories and willing to make jokes is really important. It may make us feel uncomfortable or unprofessional, but It's generally worth it. At the very least, everybody should seriously consider it.

What concrete actions do you expect the people you spread effective animal activism to take take? Which ones do you have relatively robust evidence that they'll take?

As a result of my texts about effective animal activism, many organizations improved their leaflets and started following many of Animal Charity Evaluators recommendations. Many activists recommend my texts and they are now a required reading in some activist groups. They once even asked me for permission to print the text and give them in Vegan Festivals.

The texts will keep spreading and every activist shall be filled with evidence and effectiveness ;) I'm happy with this victory.

Regarding your two last questions, I don't have enough knowledge about those topics to tell you, but I want to say that the title of my text might be a bit misleading because we do have good reasons to believe that an EA movement in Spain would be worth it.

1

I'm curious if there might be a more subtle reason low income gets in the way of EA catching on in Spanish-speaking countries than just "don't have much money to give." Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir's Scarcity explains that people under resource constraints make very different choices, and I think one of those choices is likely to be an inability to evaluate choices from the universalistic perspective EA demands.

1

Great initiative!

Some EAs are meeting in Oxford today to discuss EA outreach to Christians - see FB group Here. There might be overlap with that if you're interested!

0

I see you deleted this. You could edit it and return it to a draft to unpublish.

0

If you were try to adapt the EA message to be more successful in the Spanish context, how do you think you'd do so?

weeatquince🔸

0

. . . we did not convince anyone to change their life in a significant way to end global poverty or to reduce existential risks.

Can I ask how you measured / tracked this?

0

Hi :)

I used Google Analytics and I constantly tracked all the activity on the Facebook page and groups, comparing the performance of each text in many ways. I also talked to a lot of people about the texts and what perception they had of the EA movement so far. Apart from that, I frequently offered my contact information, and we have a Facebook group for EA in Spanish in which interested people could ask questions(almost all of them were either about effective animal activism or off-topic).

These methods allowed me to get a very good general idea. We could have done more things to track changes, but we had a small team team and limited time, so we focused on the main things.

If I ever start this project again working full time and with a strong team, I will definitely look for the most precise ways to track impact.