Complications in evaluating neglectedness

Caspar Oesterheld

The Universe From an Intentional Stance, June 25, 2020

Abstract

Neglectedness is a heuristic employed by effective altruists to assess the potential impact of their intervention in a specific cause area. While, at first glance, this concept appears straightforward – more neglected areas seemingly offer greater room for impactful contributions – the actual evaluation of neglectedness is complex and multifaceted. Factors considered typically include the amount of resources currently dedicated to the issue, the scale of the problem, and its solvability. This analysis argues that each of these factors involves complications, such as the need to consider potential future contributions to the cause, the challenge of determining the cause’s scope accurately, and the difficulty of translating resource investment into anticipated marginal returns. Notably, interpreting neglectedness as a simple measure of existing resource investment could undervalue small-scale causes. The article also emphasizes the critical importance of not double-counting or forgetting to consider factors when applying the neglectedness heuristic. The discussion contributes to the ongoing refinement of the strategic selection process used by effective altruists in their pursuit of accomplishing the most good. – AI-generated abstract.

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Quotes from this work

There are a few different definitions of neglectedness. For example, consider the following three:

  1. “If we add more resources to the cause, we can expect more promising interventions to be carried out.” (source (h ps://80000hours.org/2013/12/a-framework-for-strategically- selecting-a-cause/))

  2. You care about a cause much more than the rest of society. (source (h ps://80000hours.org/2014/01/neglectedness-and-impact/))

  3. “How many people, or dollars, are currently being dedicated to solving the problem?” (source (h ps://80000hours.org/articles/problem-framework/#definition-2))

The first one is quite close to expected value-type calculations and so it is quite clear why it is important. The second and third are more concrete and easier to measure but ultimately only relevant because they are proxies of the first (h ps://80000hours.org/articles/problem- framework/#why-is-it-important). If society is already investing a lot into a cause, then the most promising interventions in that cause area are already taken up and only less effective ones remain.

Because the second and, even more so, the third are easier to measure, I expect that, in practice, most people use these two when they evaluate neglectedness. Incidentally, these definitions also fit the terms “neglectedness” and “crowdedness” much be er. I will argue that neglectedness in the second and third sense has to be translated into neglectedness into the first sense and that this translation is difficult. Specifically, I will argue that the diminishing returns curves (h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns) on which the connection between already invested resources and the value of the marginal dollar is based on can assume different scales and shapes that have to be taken into account.