multifoliaterose comments on Efficient Charity: Cheap Utilons via bone marrow registration - Less Wrong

17 Post author: atorm 29 January 2012 03:52AM

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Comment author: multifoliaterose 13 February 2012 12:45:52AM *  0 points [-]

GiveWell itself (it directs multiple dollars to its top charities on the dollar invested, as far as I can see, and powers the growth of an effective philanthropy movement with broader implications).

There's an issue of room for more funding.

Some research in the model of Poverty Action Lab.

What information do we have from Poverty Action Lab that we wouldn't have otherwise? (This is not intended as a rhetorical question; I don't know much about what Poverty Action Lab has done).

A portfolio of somewhat outre endeavours like Paul Romer's Charter Cities.

Even in the face of the possibility of such endeavors systematically doing more harm than good due to culture clash?

Political lobbying for AMF-style interventions (Gates cites his lobbying expenditures as among their very best), carefully optimized as expected-value charity rather than tribalism using GiveWell-style empiricism, with the collective action problems of politics offsetting the reduced efficiency and corruption of the government route

Here too maybe there's an issue of room for more funding: if there's room for more funding then why does the Gates Foundation spend money on many other things?

Putting money in a Donor-Advised Fund to await the discovery of more effective charities, or special time-sensitive circumstances demanding funds especially strongly

What would the criterion for using the money be? (If one doesn't have such a criterion then one forever holds off on a better opportunity and this has zero expected value.)