The Nonlinear Library EA - Estimates on expected effects of movement/pressure group/field building? by jackva
Feb 15, 2024
01:40
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It seems relatively uncontroversial within EA-grantmaking that field building (and the building of societal pressure groups?) is an effective strategy to induce long-run changes.
E.g. a resource frequently referenced in discussions is Teles's "The Rise of the Conversative Legal Movement" as an existence proof for a very large long-run impact of philanthropic money.
I am curious whether anyone has done systematic work on using this and other evidence to (1) estimate expected effects (2) base rates of success or (3) anything else of that sort that would inform how we can think about the average (a) tractability and (b) impact of such efforts?
Luke Muehlhauser's work on early-movement growth and field-building comes closest, reviewing historical case studies and generally giving the impression that intentional movement / field acceleration is (a) possible, (b) not rocket science (things one would expect to work do work), and (c) can be quite meaningful (playing a major role in shaping and/or accelerating fields).
But it doesn't offer much in terms of relative tractability or effectiveness vis-a-vis other interventions, such as funding existing think tanks to do Beltway-style policy advocacy or other surgical interventions that we do a lot of.
Broadly, I am trying to understand how to compare funding such work to more surgical interventions, so I am interested both in absolute estimates but also relative comparisons.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
It seems relatively uncontroversial within EA-grantmaking that field building (and the building of societal pressure groups?) is an effective strategy to induce long-run changes.
E.g. a resource frequently referenced in discussions is Teles's "The Rise of the Conversative Legal Movement" as an existence proof for a very large long-run impact of philanthropic money.
I am curious whether anyone has done systematic work on using this and other evidence to (1) estimate expected effects (2) base rates of success or (3) anything else of that sort that would inform how we can think about the average (a) tractability and (b) impact of such efforts?
Luke Muehlhauser's work on early-movement growth and field-building comes closest, reviewing historical case studies and generally giving the impression that intentional movement / field acceleration is (a) possible, (b) not rocket science (things one would expect to work do work), and (c) can be quite meaningful (playing a major role in shaping and/or accelerating fields).
But it doesn't offer much in terms of relative tractability or effectiveness vis-a-vis other interventions, such as funding existing think tanks to do Beltway-style policy advocacy or other surgical interventions that we do a lot of.
Broadly, I am trying to understand how to compare funding such work to more surgical interventions, so I am interested both in absolute estimates but also relative comparisons.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org