Utter crap.

I'm reading this much later than it was written, but feel I must respond.

1. "Africa receives many billions of dollars in donations, there's clearly something wrong with the way it works, and you're not going to fix it by adding a million dollars..." Even if it were 100% true that there's something wrong with the way it works, it DOES NOT FOLLOW that the answer is to give less (or none). It may be the case that we have not given enough.

2. "It's like a car that leaks fuel, you can keep adding more and more fuel, or you should try and fix it..." Even if the analogy were 100% true and applicable, you offer a false dichotomy (add fuel OR fix it). It may be that we need to work on both simultaneously. To further the analogy, it may be that you have to add fuel to the car in the short term (knowing some will be lost), in order to keep it running long enough to get it to the mechanic who can do the long term fix.

3. "If you prolong an African life you're probably prolonging suffering, which is a waste. A life of suffering and misery is not worth saving." This is at best, horribly wrong-headed, and at worst, disgustingly elitist. I suspect it's a troll. Only a fool thinks a life that contains suffering and misery is not worth saving. Some people indeed are suffering so much that they may prefer death. But that is THEIR choice, not yours or mine. If you're really serious about triage, and how best to spend one's money to relieve suffering, a little humility and compassion (qualities I see very little of in this comment) might go a long way toward achieving humane (and yet rational) solutions. I suspect JonatasMueller belongs to a set of people about whom no one will ever have to ask these hard questions, and I suspect his answer is influenced by that fact. And: there's a subtle mistake here: the idea that reducing suffering does not include preserving or prolonging life. Says who?

4. "...the goal as I see it is to increase the intelligence (or cure the lack of it) to make the agents of this world able to willingly solve their problems, and thereby reach a state of technological advancement that allows them to get rid of all problems for good." That's a crap goal, if it crowds out other worthy goals. I believe we're already as smart as we need to be, so any efforts to try to increase intelligence are a waste of resources. I agree advancing technology is important, but I believe sharing what we have is much much more important. Our problems are mainly political, not technological. What good will it do, it technology improves the lives of some, but the fruits of that technology are not shared?