= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
eirenicon comments on The Craigslist Revolution: a real-world application of torture vs. dust specks OR How I learned to stop worrying and create one billion dollars out of nothing - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
Comments (219)
Sadly, I don't think existential risk reduction is sufficiently sympathetic to the general population (and we do need them on board for this to work). And if you have a large basket with stuff like the Methuselah foundation in it, you're likely to have people wondering why they can't put in "The Society for Rare Diseases in Photogenic Puppies".
Ideally, you'd pick something simple and widely acceptable. Obviously, it would be difficult to find a single charity that could productively use a billion extra dollars per year. But the basket should be as simple and uncontroversial (and obviously, productive) as possible).
Edit: Thinking about it, using a trusted intermediary might make the most sense. Using a grant-making agency avoids the appearance that we're funneling the money to our pet causes, it reduces the marketing/lobbying incentives (though it doesn't eliminate them) and it makes the money relatively productive (if we choose a good agency). Givewell may be a poor choice, due to the Metafilter flap, but we could specify, say the MIT Poverty Action Lab or something.
Obviously, we'd need the organizations cooperation, or at least permission.
I think it ought to be something unimaginative but reliable, like clean water or vaccines to third world countries. I can't find it at the moment but there's a highly reputable charity that provides clean drinking water to African communities. IIRC they estimated that every $400 or so saved the life of a child. A billion dollars into such a charity - saving 2.5 million children - isn't a difficult PR sell.
The problem is not finding an effective, productive, and reputable charity. There are plenty out there (even if a majority are not). It's finding a charity than can effectively and productively use an extra billion dollars. Many charities don't have the oversight and planning infrastructure to use a windfall of that size.
There is an obvious solution to this: fund multiple charities.
Philanthropy by Americans alone is about $300 billion per year. The guesstimated annual cashflow here is less than one-thousandth of that.
Most of that is given to churches, hospitals, rich-country education, etc. Much, much less is given to overseas public health aid, and less of that to efficient programs.
Mimicking the Gates Foundation grants to GAVI could absorb a lot, but would risk missing a lot of the potential to use this to promote more efficient giving.