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rwallace comments on Optimal Philanthropy for Human Beings - Less Wrong
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And why would giving away money to charities be a good idea? Returns on investment of almost all of them are extremely close to none, and most people are horrible at identifying the exceptions.
For every effective cause like let's say polio eradication, Wikileaks, and whatever GiveWell considers good, there's thousands of charities that essentially waste your money. Especially SIAI.
You're trying to use methods of rationality to come up with the best way to appeal to emotions.
In particular, for donation to a particular charity to be a good idea, two conditions have to hold:
The sign of the expected utility has to be positive rather than negative.
The magnitude has to be greater than the expected utility of purchasing goods and services in the usual way (which generates benefit not only to you, but to your trading partners, to their trading partners etc.)
It is only moderately unlikely for either condition alone to be true, but it is very unlikely for both conditions to be true simultaneously.