welcome to the nonlinear library, where we use text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and ea communities into audio.

this is: The case of the missing cause prioritisation research, published by weeatquince on the effective altruism forum.

Introduction / summary

In 2011 I came across Giving What We Can, which shortly blossomed into effective altruism. Call me a geek if you like but I found it exciting, like really exciting. Here were people thinking super carefully about the most effective ways to have an impact, to create change, to build a better world. Suddenly a boundless opportunity to do vast amounts of good opened up before my eyes. I had only just got involved and by giving to fund bednets and had already magnified my impact on the world 100 times.

And this was just the beginning. Obviously bednets were not the most effective charitable intervention, they were just the most effective we had found to date – with just a tiny amount of research. Imagine what topic could be explored next: the long run effects of interventions, economic growth, political change, geopolitics, conflict studies, etc. We could work out how to compare charities of vastly different cause areas, or how to do good beyond donations (some people were already starting to talk about career choices). Some people said we should care about animals (or AI risk), I didn’t buy it (back then), but imagine, we could work out what different value sets lead to different causes and the best charities for each.

As far as I could tell the whole field of optimising for impact seemed vastly under-explored. This wasn’t too surprising – most people don’t seem to care that much about doing charitable giving well and anyway it was only just coming to light how truly bad our intuitions were at making charitable choices (with the early 2000’s aid skepticism movement).

Looking back, I was optimistic. Yet in some regards my optimism was well-placed. In terms of spreading ideas, my small group of geeky uni friends went on to create something remarkable, to shift £m if not £bn of donations to better causes, to help 1000s maybe 100,000s of people make better career decisions. I am no longer surprised if a colleague, tinder date or complete stranger has heard of effective altruism (EA) or gives money to AMF (a bednet charity).

However, in terms of the research I was so excited about, of developing the field of how to do good, there has been minimal progress. After nearly a decade, bednets and AI research still seem to be at the top of everyone’s Christmas donations wish list. I think I assumed that someone had got this covered, that GPI or FHI or whoever will have answers, or at least progress on cause research sometime soon. But last month, whilst trying to review my career, I decided to look into this topic, and, oh boy, there just appears to be a massive gaping hole. I really don’t think it is happening.

I don’t particularly want to shift my career to do cause prioritisation research right now. So I am writing this piece in the hope that I can either have you, my dear reader, persuade me this work is not of utmost importance, or have me persuade you to do this work (so I don’t have to).

A. The importance of cause prioritisation research

What is your view on the effective altruism community and what it has achieved? What is the single most important idea to come out of the community? Feel free to take a moment to reflect. (Answers on a postcard, or comment).

It seems to me (predictably given the introduction) that far and away the most valuable thing EA has done is the development of and promotion of cause prioritisation as a concept. This idea seems (shockingly and unfortunately) unique to EA.[1] It underpins all EA thinking, guides where EA aligned foundations give and leads to people seriously considering novel causes such as animal welfare or longtermism.

This post mostly focuses on the current progress of and neglectedness of this work ...