wedrifid comments on Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others... - Less Wrong

130 Post author: Yvain 24 December 2010 09:26PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 December 2010 03:39:22AM 14 points [-]

I always try to give blood as often as possible under the assumption that I save at least one life each time

That can't possibly be right, not on the margins.

Comment author: jsteinhardt 25 December 2010 03:51:15AM 4 points [-]

Given you and wedrifid's responses, I am now updating my estimate of number of lives saved significantly downwards. However, I am curious as to why it's obvious to you that 3 lives is too high of a number on the margins.

Comment author: wedrifid 25 December 2010 04:26:52AM 9 points [-]

However, I am curious as to why it's obvious to you that 3 lives is too high of a number on the margins.

Around 15 million pints of whole blood are donated per year in the US. At 3 lives per pint that comes out to 45 million. We can also assume that if lives per pint is 3 at the margin then the more efficient cases it will be even more than that. The population of the US just isn't high enough to account for that.

Oh, then there there is the fact that a lot of cases use a whole heap more than one pint of blood. (For example.)