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Drayin comments on Why CFAR? - Less Wrong
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Comments (117)
Another important comment occurred to me -- sorry it's late.
This is really exciting, as I saw CFAR doing an RCT as one of the cool things that really made me feel like CFAR "gets it" and is committed to measuring their own impact and caring about whether they're impactful in a way that is not just mere speculation, which is good (warning: lots of nuance missing from this sentence).
However, I'm a bit disappointed to see little in the way of CFAR explicitly reacting to this negative evidence. It seems to me to be stated (which is really good!) but then ignored (which could be bad!). What is CFAR's plans in response to this RCT? If it's just fund another/better RCT, what is the status of that funding and how high of a priority is it? What long-run effects on CFAR will RCTs/measurement have? Would there ever be a situation where CFAR would shut down / admit they aren't an equally compelling donation opportunity, based on RCT or other evidence?
I think this conversation is a time when numerical hypotheses are helpful; I personally did not expect the CFAR minicamp to increase income over the next year, happiness, or exercise, but thought if there was a discernible effect it was more likely to be positive than negative. A year is a short time as far as income is concerned; happiness is very hard to adjust; a weekend motivational retreat is unlikely to be effective at altering exercise relative to other interventions. (I exercise more now than I did before, primarily thanks to Beeminder, which shows up a lot in CFAR circles and some on LW, and I think I started that more than a year after going to CFAR the first time.)
Now, if the CFAR staff had put high probability on having success on one of those three fronts, then I think that logic is worth discussing.
"if the CFAR staff had put high probability on having success on one of those three fronts, then I think that logic is worth discussing."
It would seem somewhat strange for CFAR to test three variables they did not expect to increase...
Also I do not think happiness is very hard to adjust. There is research that some simple things can improve your happiness and have been tested with RCT's. E.g. meditation and gratitude lists had a measurable effect.