Even with malaria nets (which seem like a very simple case), having information from the people who are using them could be important. Is using malaria nets harder than it sounds? Are there other diseases which deserve more attention?
One of the topics here is that sometimes experts get things wrong. Of course, so do non-experts, but one of the checks on experts is people who have local experience.
Even with malaria nets (which seem like a very simple case), having information from the people who are using them could be important.
Even then, is trying to encourage sub-saharan African participation in the Effective Altruism movement really the best way to gather data about their needs and values? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to hire an information-gathering specialist of some sort to conduct investigations?
A long blog post explains why the author, a feminist, is not comfortable with the rationalist community despite thinking it is "super cool and interesting". It's directed specifically at Yvain, but it's probably general enough to be of some interest here.
http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/
I'm not sure if I can summarize this fairly but the main thrust seems to be that we are overly willing to entertain offensive/taboo/hurtful ideas and this drives off many types of people. Here's a quote:
The author perceives a link between LW type open discourse and danger to minority groups. I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Take race. Many LWers are willing to entertain ideas about the existence and possible importance of average group differences in psychological traits. So, maybe LWers are racists. But they're racists who continually obsess over optimizing their philanthropic contributions to African charities. So, maybe not racists in a dangerous way?
An overly rosy view, perhaps, and I don't want to deny the reality of the blogger's experience. Clearly, the person is intelligent and attracted to some aspects of LW discourse while turned off by other aspects.