This was an April Fool’s joke.
To date, GiveWell writeups have focused on being detailed, nuanced, thoroughly cited, and clear. Something we’ve consciously not prioritized is making them “accessible”: easy and fun to read, emotionally compelling, memorable, and strongly persuasive to casual readers. Writing accessibly isn’t a natural strength of ours, and it can be difficult to reconcile with our more core goals of transparency, nuance, etc. As a result, until recently, we haven’t had the capacity to put in the substantial amount of work it would take to improve the accessibility of our writing.
We’ve recently increased our capacity for outreach, however, and over the last several months we’ve been working on a pilot project: trying an alternative way of writing our evidence reviews that aims for dramatically better accessibility, while hopefully preserving nuance. We’ve partnered with several communications firms (whose names we’ve withheld for now pending feedback on our pilot project, subject to the terms of our agreement) that we consider to be on the cutting edge of knowledge about effective communication and persuasion. These firms collaborated on an in-depth study of what we could learn from the most effective communicators from the worlds of business, entertainment, and politics. We were impressed with their methodology for identifying effective persuaders, and we believe our test writeup effectively integrates practices that have shown to be extremely impressive in mass persuasion.
We would greatly appreciate readers’ feedback on our test writeup, and the extent to which it combines emotional resonance and persuasiveness with maintaining our commitment to accuracy, detail and nuance. Please leave feedback as comments on this post.
Let’s dispel with this fiction that these worms don’t know what they’re doing. They know EXACTLY what they’re doing.
Let’s dispel with this fiction that these worms don’t know what they’re doing. They know EXACTLY what they’re doing.
Let’s dispel with this fiction that these worms don’t know what they’re doing. They know EXACTLY what they’re doing.
Worms, who said anything about worms? I never said that. I LOVE WORMS; I got a lot of wormy friends. Some of my biggest supporters are worms. I do great among worms.
But hey, if worms became a problem, NOBODY would be tougher on worms than me – nobody!
Well, your prose seems even worst than the worms: it’s punchy enough, yes, but arrogant, self-infatuated, and under the belly of opponents. Try again, but with more classy humor. I can’t believe that US-American firms are now so low in communication expertise. My advice for better persuasion : stop over killing à la Trump and dare over feeling à la Bern.
I just have to say it. This was best part of my day today. Burst out laughing!
(I hope you won’t set the worms on me!)
Come on, those tissue lesions were probably there already before they got worms! How do you know they weren’t? That’s what nobody is talking about – these kids complaining about having parasites and not being able to attend school, you can’t trust them, really can’t trust them, they’re just whiners trying to avoid having to work like you and me – and sure, they may look like they’re using pens to do their homework, but sometimes those pens are actually miniature bombs.
Why not eat the worms? That would simultaneously solve world hunger
And we’ll make the worms pay for it!
Initially, a persuasive, really interesting list for outsiders or light-readers?
Hey, schisto happens — and they started it!
To me, the key at making a text accessible is more on presenting the most important information in a clear way. To me, using a vulgar style, as the one above, actually undermines the credibility.
This didn’t hit the mark for me. I agree with the poster above that presenting the most important information in a clear way is going to be more persuasive. And regarding that, it seems that very little important information in general was presented in the summary. When there was important information presented (specifically the linked study in the risks and reservations), it wasn’t integrated well. Simply surrounding confusing concepts like “year-stratified cluster-summary analysis” with Trumpisms isn’t going to make that kind of statistical analysis any clearer to somebody who doesn’t have a background in statistics. I would stay away from Trumpifying these summaries in general, because it undermines credibility and distracts from the main message.
Gerard, Brian: Guys, check the date of the post.
Ahaha, OK, got me!
The fact that anyone thought this was serious is completely hilarious to me. 😀
Fun Police here. Political jokes are probably a bad idea. The subtext of the joke is: Haha, Trump is silly and says silly things; Givewell and deworming charities are organisations opposed to Trump; the large proportion of the American population who supports Trump is not welcome here.
Givewell ought to be scrupulously politically neutral, not just neutral about those politicians who are considered respectable by intellectuals. This could easily have been an excellent joke about a writeup full of “trust me” and hyperbole, without any political references.
Hahaha
For better communication skills, see http://mentalfloss.com/article/48793/18-complicated-scientific-ideas-explained-simply
For instance:
“I try to see if bad people with power let bad people in business do bad things for easy money. Also I try to see if this hurts good people and their money.” Warren Durrett, political economist
Or about worm-like problems:
“”Our body doesn’t like to have visits from other things that don’t look like friends. When they come inside us, our cells look at them with many different types of eyes. Different eyes see different figures and forms, so they can find out what they are and what to do with them. They are not usual eyes, they work like little hands too and grab things. I am studying one of these eyes that sees weird stuff, like those things that grow on your food when it goes off. But this eye doesn’t do it alone. And that makes it exciting. It has some other friends helping; the more eyes the better! All-in-one they catch the stranger and they eat it. Once eaten, they show the left-over little pieces to their cell-friends. So that they know what kind of bad guys to fight. They also call more friends in if there is a lot of it to eat. This is how our body keep us free from being sick and stay happy, isn’t it amazing?” @Analobpas, talking about C-type lectins”
For better communication skills, see http://mentalfloss.com/article/48793/18-complicated-scientific-ideas-explained-simply
For instance:
“I try to see if bad people with power let bad people in business do bad things for easy money. Also I try to see if this hurts good people and their money.” Warren Durrett, political economist
And for worm-like problems:
“Our body doesn’t like to have visits from other things that don’t look like friends. When they come inside us, our cells look at them with many different types of eyes. Different eyes see different figures and forms, so they can find out what they are and what to do with them. They are not usual eyes, they work like little hands too and grab things. I am studying one of these eyes that sees weird stuff, like those things that grow on your food when it goes off. But this eye doesn’t do it alone. And that makes it exciting. It has some other friends helping; the more eyes the better! All-in-one they catch the stranger and they eat it. Once eaten, they show the left-over little pieces to their cell-friends. So that they know what kind of bad guys to fight. They also call more friends in if there is a lot of it to eat. This is how our body keep us free from being sick and stay happy, isn’t it amazing?” @Analobpas, talking about C-type lectins
I second Leo’s comment. I trust GiveWell less after this. “Aspiring rationalists” should not indulge in intergroup hostility.
I thought this was hilarious. I’m expecting GiveWell to land an endorsement from a certain prominent billionaire any day now.