Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Money: The Unit of Caring - Less Wrong

95 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 March 2009 12:35PM

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Comment author: taw 31 March 2009 03:46:25PM 18 points [-]

You make a huge unspoken assumptions that people actually care about charities getting their stated work done. There's very little evidence for it, and plenty of evidence against it. As far as we know people donate time and money to charities to signal their moral character to others, and to receive pleasant feelings of contributing in return.

So you'd be right, if your basic assumption wasn't so completely mistaken. To be honest this assumption is extremely common, so it's not just your mistake, but it doesn't make it any less false.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 March 2009 11:28:22PM 22 points [-]

You mistake my assumptions. I am talking to people who I assume care at least a little about actual impact on the real world, and trying to pry them loose from a charitable world optimized mostly around pleasant feelings.