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JamesAndrix comments on Logical Rudeness - Less Wrong
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Really, we should be trying to look at the total effects of any given expenditure. (including where we get the money from in the first place, if that's variable)
But to simplify:
If spending $100 in a certain way benefits 10 parties as much as giving them $20 would, each could argue that it would be more efficient (by a factor of 5!!) to just give them the $100. But if you care roughly equally for all the parties, it would really be only half as good.
The only such defence worthy of our attention is one where the speaker is prepared to explicitly state a guess at the dollar value of each advantage and show that the sum is greater than the cost spent.
Or where the sum advantage is obvious compared to the next best alternative, without formally computing expected value.
Agreed