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MichaelBishop comments on Excuse me, would you like to take a survey? - Less Wrong
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I'd like to see a question on the best level of aid to the Third World (say, an estimated optimum as a fraction of GDP in affluent Western countries). The current level is nonzero but rather low (especially if you exclude things like military aid to allies); some people say it's scandalously low, others that such aid is actively harmful and the level should therefore be zero or very close. (I assume plenty of people also say that the level should be zero because someone in the US has no obligations to someone in sub-saharan Africa, but that opinion isn't expressed so often in public.)
Have people answer two ways: 1) assume essentially no change in the type and quality of projects funded 2) assume some wise politicians make some realistic improvements in transparency, and accountability. The equivalent of No Child Left Behind for foreign aid.
Why not just assume magical space fairies come down to earth and solve poverty? It's a more realistic expectation.
"Why not just assume magical space fairies come down to earth and solve poverty? It's a more realistic expectation."
Right, like with the No Child Left Behind system, "still waiting for the magical space fairies to wisely make schools accountable since 2001."
Rather than argue over whether such a thing is possible I think that assuming the aid would be spent on whatever would do the most good would be the least convenient posisble world, and the one that gives us the opinion we're after here. Together with the opinion on the realistic case this tells us both what we think of the concept of aid if it works and what we think of it in practice.