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PhilGoetz comments on Utilons vs. Hedons - Less Wrong
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This example is hardly hypothetical. According to GiveWell, you can save the life of one African person for $200 - $1000.
Almost everyone has spent $5000 on things that they didn't need - for example a new car as opposed to a second hand one, a refurbishment of a room in the house, a family holiday. $5000 comes nowhere close to "doubling your hedons" - in fact it probably hardly makes a dent. Furthermore, almost everyone is aware of this fact, but we conveniently don't pay any attention to it, and our subconscious minds don't remind us about it because the deaths in Africa are remote and impersonal.
Since I know of very few people who spend literally all their spare money on saving lives at $1000 per life, and almost everyone would honestly claim that they would pay $200 - 1000 to save someone from a painful death, it is fair to say that people pretty universally don't maximize "utilons".
No; it's fair to say that their utilons are not a linear function of human lives saved.
If you think there are too many people in the world, you might be willing to pay to prevent the saving of lives.
Funny thing is, the only people I know who don't agree that there are too many people in the world, are objectivists, libertarians, and extropians (there's a high correlation between these categories), who are among the least-likely to give money to save people in Africa.
Africa's population density is 26 people per km^2 source, whereas the EU's population density is 114 people per km^2 Source. Thus it is probably the case that Africa could easily sustain its current population if it were more economically developed.
That's a huge "if".
Sending money there is not a way to get the local economy to develop. It's been done for decades and the African economy is barely developped.
IMO, I think the main reasons aid has been ineffective is the particular ways it has been given. It often a) empowers dictators or b) reduces profit opportunities for for African farmers and food distributors which reduces their incentive to invest in improving their farming or other businesses.
In my opinion, it would be easy to make sending money somewhat helpful. But even if I'm right, somewhat helpful is far from maximally helpful.
Something like the Grameen Bank would probably be the best bet. If there's room for economic growth but no capital to power it, then making microcredit available seems like the obvious choice.