oh hmm.
Looks like https://www.nonlinear.org/network.html doesn't throw that error. Will report this back to them.
wanted the post to focus specifically upon how difficult it seems to avoid the conclusion of prioritizing animal welfare in neartermism
I wasn't familiar with these other calculations you mention. I thought you were just relying on the RP studies which seemed flimsy. This extra context makes the case much stronger.
Sadly, I don't think that approach is correct. The 5th percentile of a product of random variables is not the product of the 5th percentiles---in fact, in general, it's going to be a product of much higher percentiles (20+).
I don't think that's true either.
If you're multiplying noramlly distributed distributions, the general rule is that you add the percentage variances in quadrature.
Which I don't think converges to a specific percentile like 20+. As more and more uncertainties cancel out the relative contribution of any given uncertainty goes to zero.
IDK. I did explicitly say that my calculation wasn't correct. And with the information on hand I can't see how I could've done better. Maybe I should've fudged it down by one OOD.
Thanks for responding to my hot takes with patience and good humour!
Your defenses and caveats all sound very reasonable.
the relevant vertebrates are probably within an OOM of humans
So given this, you'd agree with the conclusion of the original piece? At least if we take the "number of chickens affected per dollar" input as correct?
FYI, I made a spreadsheet a while ago which automatically pulls the latest OP grants data and constructs summaries and pivot tables to make this type of analysis easier.
I also made these interactive plots which summarise all EA funding:
My thinking was that Because they were doing influential research and brought in funding? FHI's work seems significantly better than most academic philosophy, even by prestigious university standards.
But on reflection, yes, obviously Oxford University will bring more prestige to anything it touches.