{"id":1943,"date":"2015-12-29T12:37:31","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T20:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2015-12-29T12:37:31","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T20:37:31","slug":"the-arts-effective-altruism-and-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2015\/12\/the-arts-effective-altruism-and-data\/","title":{"rendered":"The arts, effective altruism, and data"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"passions<\/a>The Seattle Times<\/em> reports<\/a>\u00a0“With millennial philanthropy money flowing, arts groups miss out”:<\/p>\n

[Elizabeth] Van Nostrand explained that Effective Altruism \u201cis extremely quantitative. \u2018How much money does it take them to save a life? Give to the one that saves the most.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Though millennials like Van Nostrand and Salvatier are a generosity-minded bunch, this data-driven approach has left a traditional beneficiary of charitable giving out in the cold: the arts.<\/p>\n

Cultural institutions, which have historically been high on the list of those with flush pockets, as well as smaller arts nonprofits, are straining to attract a new generation of donors that demands a metric for each dollar spent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing, as they say, but I think there is a fair bit of confusion in the piece, and the place of the arts in effective altruism, and the role of data.<\/p>\n

Effective Altruism (an excellent introduction and critique from Amia Srinivasan in the LRB is here<\/a>) would have donors think systematically about these two questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What are the goals I would like my charitable giving and\/or volunteer time to further?; and<\/li>\n
  2. Given the answer to (1), what are the most effective means for furthering those goals?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Data and research can help us with question 2. If our goal is to have better life chances for the poorest people in the poorest countries, we can look to the results of programs of various charities and ask which have been able to accomplish the most with the funds they have available. We can do the same if our goal is to help the quality of life for the homeless in our own cities, or for programs that help poor children get a good start in life. Metrics can help us in assessing the means to achieving our goals.<\/p>\n

    But data will not<\/em> help us answer question 1. Whether we should donate to our local animal shelter when there are homeless people sleeping on our streets is a question that cannot be answered by statistics generated by the animal shelter or the homeless shelter. Neither can data tell us whether charity ought to be directed to the poorest in our own country, or the poorest in Africa. The answers to these weighty moral decisions are not to be found in social science. “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions” – Our ultimate goals, our sense of what is good and right, cannot be derived from our knowledge of the world, our “reason”, but must ultimately be traced to our “passions”. (When I was in school my professors called this Hume’s Law: you cannot derive an “ought” statement from a set of “is” statements).<\/p>\n

    And so back to the arts. What our millennials [sic] are researching are metrics regarding question 2 – what are the most effective programs at achieving certain goals. Metrics are not<\/em> helping them with question 1, because they can’t<\/em>. Prioritizing giving to the arts over other charities comes from the passions, what donors think matters. No arts metrics<\/em> are going to solve that.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Seattle Times reports\u00a0“With millennial philanthropy money flowing, arts groups miss out”: [Elizabeth] Van Nostrand explained that Effective Altruism \u201cis extremely quantitative. \u2018How much money does it take them to save a life? Give to the one that saves the most.\u2019 \u201d Though millennials like Van Nostrand and Salvatier are a generosity-minded bunch, this data-driven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Hume.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-vl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":776,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2013\/05\/on-special-showings-for-seniors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1943,"position":0},"title":"On special showings for seniors","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"May 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"At the Freakonomics blog, Daniel Hamermesh reports on pricing at his local cinema in suburban London: Every\u00a0Tuesday they show a recent movie (e.g., Lincoln is showing on\u00a0May 21) and charge only \u00a33 ($4.60). \u00a0Moreover, you get \u201cfree tea, coffee and biscuits!\u201d Such a deal\u2014so how can they make money off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"would you like a cuppa?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Copy_of_ladykill-300x230.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2311,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2018\/03\/decorative-but-not-useful-the-instrumental-benefits-of-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1943,"position":1},"title":"Decorative but not useful: the instrumental benefits of the arts","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"March 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"What good are the arts beyond the personal aesthetic pleasure we gain from them? There is quite a list out there, of these so-called instrumental benefits of the arts: they make us more empathetic people, or so a grant to the Minneapolis Institute of Art hopes (in a recent review\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"you'll be sorry if you do","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/do-not-touch.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/do-not-touch.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/do-not-touch.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2160,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2016\/12\/what-do-we-actually-mean-by-intrinsic-benefits\/","url_meta":{"origin":1943,"position":2},"title":"What do we actually mean by intrinsic benefits?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"At Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ian David Moss has a thoughtful\u00a0blog post on whether there is coherence in the notion of separating intrinsic and instrumental benefits from the arts. He writes: One problem with the intrinsic vs. instrumental distinction is that it\u2019s something of a false dichotomy: Interrogate a dedicated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"No. 1 Durum","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1796,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2015\/01\/new-research-from-the-nea\/","url_meta":{"origin":1943,"position":3},"title":"New research from the NEA","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"January 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"New research on arts participation and economics has been released by the National Endowment for the Arts. I won't try to summarize everything there, just a few comments: Two of the reports are on participation: one asks about who participates in what, the other asks people about why they participated.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"what are the data telling us?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2861,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2023\/03\/artists-guaranteed-income-and-how-to-do-arts-policy-analysis\/","url_meta":{"origin":1943,"position":4},"title":"Artists’ guaranteed income, and how to do arts policy analysis","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"March 24, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times reports on how the Irish experiment in giving some randomly selected artists a small guaranteed income (while also observing a control group of artists not included in the program) is going: Lydia Mulvey, 47, a screenwriter, said that she quit her job in a telecommunications firm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1433,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/07\/performance-measures-indices-and-rankings\/","url_meta":{"origin":1943,"position":5},"title":"Performance measures, indices and rankings","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok, not a blog post title likely to set your pulse racing, but with so much discussion in the arts world the past few years on the uses of data, a caveat. It is brought to mind by a story from Money magazine (a branch of Time), which has tried\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"what are the data telling us?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1943"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1948,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions\/1948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}