So why do you say that the Folding money would better be spent on starving Africans then? Shouldn't it be donated to the SIAI instead, if you believe it? If not, why not criticize them on the same basis? I am also not claiming that one shouldn't value other people, just that you don't have to weight all lives equally and shouldn't expect others to. And I don't really believe that anyone truly maximizes "lives of others", or would want to if they knew what it meant.
Also, "Charity X doesn't optimize under my personal ethics" is not the same as "Charity is not about helping", not that I disagree that signaling is important.
So why do you say that the Folding money would better be spent on starving Africans then? Shouldn't it be donated to the SIAI instead, if you believe it? If not, why not criticize them on the same basis?
Because I am not writing for the tiny cluster of fellow zealots who agree about the high EV of donating to SIAI. I am writing for intelligent people in general, and one of the standard practices of philosophy - and heck, writing in general - is to not make highly controversial claims you do not need to make. I do not have to prove SIAI is the highest EV ...
Latest in an irregular series, some of whose previous entries were Edge.org and the Girl Scouts...
I examine the Folding@home distributed computing project with reference to the costs (electricity resulting in air pollution causing deaths) and benefits (some papers): http://www.gwern.net/Charity is not about helping. Additional data on either side of the cost-benefit is welcome.
(I also recently split out my essay describing things I have changed my mind on.)