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Elizabeth comments on Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others... - Less Wrong
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I didn't say that other goals could compete, but there are other goals that can be considered simultaneously. If one charity saves ten children for $100 and another saves nine and accomplishes a few other things, that is not a choice we should make mindlessly. we can't let "saving children become a buzzword that cuts off thought. What if the second charity saves the children from death and gives them some skills that will help them make a living and help their communities? In that case, I would probably choose the second charity. Think of it as a linear algebra problem, with numerous parameters with different weights. You end up with an optimal solution for all variables together rather than for a single variable alone. Just because saving children is the most heavily weighted variable doesn't mean that it is the only one.
At the risk of provoking defensiveness I will say that it really sounds like you are trying to rationalize your preferences as being rational when they aren't.
I say this because the examples that you were giving (local food kitchen, public radio), when compared to truly efficient charities (save lives, improve health, foster local entrepreneurship), are nothing like "save 9 kids + some other benefits" vs. "save 10 kids and nothing else". It''s more like "save 0.1 kids that you know are in your neighborhood" vs. "save 10 kids that you will never meet" (and that's probably an overestimate on the local option). Your choice of a close number is suspicious because it is so wrong and so appealing (by justifying the giving that makes you happy).
The amount of happiness that you create through local first world charities is orders of magnitude less than third world charities. Therefore, if you are choosing local first world charities that help "malnourished" kids who are fabulously nourished by third world standards, we can infer that the weight you put on "saving the lives of children" (and with it, "maximizing human quality-adjusted life years") is basically zero. Therefore, you are almost certainly buying warm fuzzies. That's consumption, not charity. I'm all for consumption, I just don't like people pretending that it's charity so they can tick their mental "give to charity" box and move on.
I agree with you completely about consumption vs. charity, and had even mentioned the concept in my point about NPR donation guilt.
I also agree that the close number is wildly inaccurate, but even in context it wasn't applied to local charities and it was intended to make the point that multiple factors could and should be considered when picking charities, even when the importance multipliers on some factors are orders of magnitude higher than for other factors.
I hope this clarifies my meaning without defensiveness, because none was meant.
Ok, great, I'm glad I misunderstood.