I don’t have some of the language for this, but how does local impact work into effective altruism? Is there value to be considered in the community and relationship-building aspects of being involved with/donating to your local food bank that tips the scale in that direction, although it may not be the “most efficient” use of your time and money in terms of number of lives saved?
This is all off the top of my head, I think a lot about these questions in my own local social connection & volunteering work. I also think that it's important to balance these EA ideas with others. I'm not all-in on the EA priorities, and there's lots of uncertainty in the world & how things are measured, and many things that are valuable are hard to measure.
Anyways!
I think about your question in a couple different ways.
1. You can apply the ideas of effective altruism to the setting you're thinking about, which will still help you find A: what the most impactful things you can do in your community would be, or B: to find ways to do what you're doing more effectively. I haven't looked into this, but an example for A might be comparing donating to your local food bank vs addressing root causes through poverty reduction programs like getting more people signed up for banking & avoiding predatory check-cashing practices. Both are important & serve different purposes, but one might be more impactful than the other because of the scale & systemic side of things. An example for B if you are doing food distribution at the food bank is to see how many people you reach & how to reach more people effectively, or figure out what types of foods are the best to distribute by different metrics of consumption, nutrition, enjoyability, etc.
I didn't mention this in the post (though the graphic does briefly) that one of the evaluating methods for a good cause to focus on are its scalability, neglectedness, and tractability. You could apply the same ideas for different things in your local community!
Maybe if traffic safety is your big concern, there's a particularly dangerous intersection that nobody seems to care about, but by the data is where the most deaths or car accidents occur, that's probably a good place to focus your attentions. Or if you're an aware of some thing that's boring to most people but actually very important, like housing zoning laws that prevent the construction of affordable housing, you could focus more attention on those things.
2. I think there are two separate "tracks" here: one where you are going from 0 to 1, going from not doing anything to doing something, not giving to giving. And then there's the other world where you're doing / giving already, and want to go from 1 to 1,000 or a million. These are both important things! I think it's hard enough to get people to go from 0 to 1, and that alone is important in empowering others & being of service to something greater than ourselves. Effective Altruism is about taking those already flexed givers & doers and making them more effective.
Similarly, in the EA world, people often think of the simultaneous views of the world where the world for many is much better than it was before, and the world for many is horrific and we can make it better still. These things exist at the same time and it's important to consider both.
I'm sure I have more thoughts on this, but this unorganized blob is what comes to mind initally :)
Those are some good points! Another thing I think about, and maybe it’s related to 0 to 1 vs 1 to 1000, is how the altruism impacts the giver. A more effective donation might “feel” less tangible and leave the giver unsure of the value of what they’ve just given, whereas serving in person with their own hands and feet “feels” like they’ve accomplished something and motivate them to do so again. So perhaps their altruism stacks up over the long run?
Yes, so this is something that some EAs think about as well.
You feel more warm and fuzzy when you can see/feel the impact you have, when it's close, when it's personal. But how fuzzy you feel might be somewhat opposite of the impact that it could have when compared to the other, less personal, calculated impact option. Not always, obviously.
This is partly why I wanted to do global health implementation work, in-person, and feel the fuzzies and sustain that work while also knowing that it was really important work.
I would say that making sure you're sustained & motivated in your altruism definitely helps, but it's not impossible to feel for a more "effective" donation or act of altruism - this is why those charities like Partners in Health give you a story of the people your donation helps, or send you the pictures of the person who lived from tuberculosis because your donation sustained the charity's work.
And yes, the person who is motivated in their altruism may have it stack up over the long run, but you still need to consider how much that adds up to. This will sound harsh, and I don't necessarily believe it, but it may be the case that all of the altruistic things you do in a lifetime in your community still add up to less than if you did a year's work in a high-impact setting. Similarly, the impact of donating $500k to local charities might have less impact than $5000 to a high-impact charity.
It's a little disheartening at times to think like that, and I still think it's important to do local work & things that give you the fuzzy feelings, but I think the work that EA is doing is in finding the best & the most.
We should have a call sometime to continue this conversation! :)
I don’t have some of the language for this, but how does local impact work into effective altruism? Is there value to be considered in the community and relationship-building aspects of being involved with/donating to your local food bank that tips the scale in that direction, although it may not be the “most efficient” use of your time and money in terms of number of lives saved?
Yes Sara!
This is all off the top of my head, I think a lot about these questions in my own local social connection & volunteering work. I also think that it's important to balance these EA ideas with others. I'm not all-in on the EA priorities, and there's lots of uncertainty in the world & how things are measured, and many things that are valuable are hard to measure.
Anyways!
I think about your question in a couple different ways.
1. You can apply the ideas of effective altruism to the setting you're thinking about, which will still help you find A: what the most impactful things you can do in your community would be, or B: to find ways to do what you're doing more effectively. I haven't looked into this, but an example for A might be comparing donating to your local food bank vs addressing root causes through poverty reduction programs like getting more people signed up for banking & avoiding predatory check-cashing practices. Both are important & serve different purposes, but one might be more impactful than the other because of the scale & systemic side of things. An example for B if you are doing food distribution at the food bank is to see how many people you reach & how to reach more people effectively, or figure out what types of foods are the best to distribute by different metrics of consumption, nutrition, enjoyability, etc.
I didn't mention this in the post (though the graphic does briefly) that one of the evaluating methods for a good cause to focus on are its scalability, neglectedness, and tractability. You could apply the same ideas for different things in your local community!
Maybe if traffic safety is your big concern, there's a particularly dangerous intersection that nobody seems to care about, but by the data is where the most deaths or car accidents occur, that's probably a good place to focus your attentions. Or if you're an aware of some thing that's boring to most people but actually very important, like housing zoning laws that prevent the construction of affordable housing, you could focus more attention on those things.
2. I think there are two separate "tracks" here: one where you are going from 0 to 1, going from not doing anything to doing something, not giving to giving. And then there's the other world where you're doing / giving already, and want to go from 1 to 1,000 or a million. These are both important things! I think it's hard enough to get people to go from 0 to 1, and that alone is important in empowering others & being of service to something greater than ourselves. Effective Altruism is about taking those already flexed givers & doers and making them more effective.
Similarly, in the EA world, people often think of the simultaneous views of the world where the world for many is much better than it was before, and the world for many is horrific and we can make it better still. These things exist at the same time and it's important to consider both.
I'm sure I have more thoughts on this, but this unorganized blob is what comes to mind initally :)
Those are some good points! Another thing I think about, and maybe it’s related to 0 to 1 vs 1 to 1000, is how the altruism impacts the giver. A more effective donation might “feel” less tangible and leave the giver unsure of the value of what they’ve just given, whereas serving in person with their own hands and feet “feels” like they’ve accomplished something and motivate them to do so again. So perhaps their altruism stacks up over the long run?
Yes, so this is something that some EAs think about as well.
You feel more warm and fuzzy when you can see/feel the impact you have, when it's close, when it's personal. But how fuzzy you feel might be somewhat opposite of the impact that it could have when compared to the other, less personal, calculated impact option. Not always, obviously.
This is partly why I wanted to do global health implementation work, in-person, and feel the fuzzies and sustain that work while also knowing that it was really important work.
I would say that making sure you're sustained & motivated in your altruism definitely helps, but it's not impossible to feel for a more "effective" donation or act of altruism - this is why those charities like Partners in Health give you a story of the people your donation helps, or send you the pictures of the person who lived from tuberculosis because your donation sustained the charity's work.
And yes, the person who is motivated in their altruism may have it stack up over the long run, but you still need to consider how much that adds up to. This will sound harsh, and I don't necessarily believe it, but it may be the case that all of the altruistic things you do in a lifetime in your community still add up to less than if you did a year's work in a high-impact setting. Similarly, the impact of donating $500k to local charities might have less impact than $5000 to a high-impact charity.
It's a little disheartening at times to think like that, and I still think it's important to do local work & things that give you the fuzzy feelings, but I think the work that EA is doing is in finding the best & the most.
We should have a call sometime to continue this conversation! :)