{"id":8429,"date":"2013-12-11T11:44:24","date_gmt":"2013-12-11T16:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=8429"},"modified":"2013-12-13T08:51:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T13:51:52","slug":"spare-a-penny-for-the-poor-of-patience-guv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2013\/12\/spare-a-penny-for-the-poor-of-patience-guv.html","title":{"rendered":"Spare a penny for the poor of patience, guv?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, there was an interesting post on LessWrong about the unspoken assumptions of the Effective Altruism movement<\/a>:<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0\u2018Effective Altruist\u2019\u00a0<\/em>has a major problem: it refers to altruism, not ethics. Altruism may be a part of ethics (though\u00a0the etymology of the term gives some concern<\/a>), but it is not all there is to ethics.\u00a0Value is complex.<\/a>\u00a0Helping people is good, but so is truth, and justice, and freedom, and beauty, and loyalty, and fairness, and honor, and fraternity, and tradition, and many other things.<\/p>\n

A charity that very efficiently promoted beauty and justice, but only inefficiently produced happiness, would probably not be considered an EA organization. A while ago I suggested to [one of the leaders of the\u00a0Center for Effective Altruism<\/a>] the creation of a charity to promote promise-keeping. I didn\u2019t claim such a charity would be an optimal way of promoting happiness, and to them, this was sufficient to show 1) that it was not EA \u2013 and\u00a0 hence 2) inferior to EA things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the most part, organizations like GiveWell<\/a> aren\u2019t screening for happiness, they\u2019re looking for improvements in DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years<\/a>). \u00a0And I\u2019m pretty darn happy about that. \u00a0A lot of charities try to do nominally good work, but don\u2019t track outcomes and efficiency. \u00a0I\u2019m delighted GiveWell is trying to filter these organizations by measuring the work they do and incentivising organizations to think more about their methods, in order to get access to the money GiveWell moves.<\/p>\n

But the LW poster is correct that, when we focus measuring success, we can fall prey to bias, rewarding only those groups whose efficacy is easiest to measure, i.e. those that prolong life but may or may not improve the quality of life. \u00a0I\u2019m still very enthused to give to public health organizations, but I am interested in having a bit more discussion about charity and aid that\u2019s meant to strengthen community ties or reduce despair or otherwise strengthen\u00a0caritas<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These outcomes are hard to measure, but it\u2019s interesting that there aren\u2019t many interventions making even vague, unsubstantiated claims in this area. \u00a0Toys for Tots and others will tell us that toys will make children happier<\/em>, but there aren\u2019t many groups telling us that our money will go toward making children more empathetic or more fierce in defence of the weak. \u00a0I\u2019d be curious about what groups you\u2019ve seen making any claims closer to this second type.<\/p>\n

One possible outcome variable I could imagine a charity focusing on would be the ability to delay gratification,\u00a0a la the marshmallow test<\/a>. \u00a0Patience is instrumentally valuable, but it also might be a proxy for community ties. \u00a0Researchers found that children did worse at the marshmallow test when they\u2019d already been made to wait by an adult who ultimately didn\u2019t deliver on their promise of fancy crayons<\/a>. \u00a0So, one way of increasing the ability to delay gratification might be by increasing the reliability\/trustworthiness of the adults the children were exposed to at a young age. \u00a0Not sure what the most efficient way of doing\u00a0that<\/em> is, but it\u2019s an interesting outcome to aim for.<\/p>\n

And as for just generally increasing empathy, there\u2019s a study<\/a> where social workers trained parents to ask themselves\u00a0why<\/em> their baby was crying. \u00a0It helped them notice that the answer wasn\u2019t \u201cto be a pain in my ass\u201d and helped them think about the baby as a person, not a problem. \u00a0The subjects trained this way had lower rates of abuse and neglect than those that weren\u2019t. \u00a0Conceivably, teaching just this step to\u00a0everyone<\/em> or some other CBT reframes might make a big difference in treating other people as people.<\/p>\n

What other interventions would you like to check and possible fund through charities?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m on (a belated) day eight of\u00a0a novena to St. Isidore<\/a>,\u00a0my saint for the month<\/a>, and readers are welcome to join me.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, there was an interesting post on LessWrong about the unspoken assumptions of the Effective Altruism movement: However,\u00a0\u2018Effective Altruist\u2019\u00a0has a major problem: it refers to altruism, not ethics. Altruism may be a part of ethics (though\u00a0the etymology of the term gives some concern), but it is not all there is to ethics.\u00a0Value […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":8432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-morality-in-practice"],"yoast_head":"\nSpare a penny for the poor of patience, guv?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A few weeks ago, there was an interesting post on LessWrong about the unspoken assumptions of the Effective Altruism movement: However,\u00a0'Effective\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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