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closeness comments on Open Thread, May 26 - June 1, 2014 - Less Wrong
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I'm thinking of ways to promote effective altruism, such as speaking at colleges and political lobbying. Any thoughts/recommendations?
Which political things do you want to lobby for?
Changing where international aid goes. Regulating charities so they have to apply a criteria showing how effective they spend money. This is in Ireland btw.
What measure of effectiveness would you propose such that it is easy to calculate and applicable to all charities?
I think the easiest way would be to show smallest number of euros per live saved, and charities which have minimal to do with saving lives wouldn't be considered useful at all. Givewell.orgs' charity list seems like the best one to promote, as for charities which work within Ireland, that would be more difficult.
That's a rather... extreme attitude.
So you want a government policy which explicitly says that charities which do not directly save lives are worthless?
It would be more about informing than enforcing. There are already rules here which make registered charities show where their money goes, so a mechanism for comparing effectiveness wouldn't be a big leap.
I submit that an official government definition of what constitutes the effectiveness of a charity would be a huge leap.
Start a local EA meetup.
There was something on the Effective Altruist facebook page (I think) about how political lobbying only really makes a difference if you have a lot of cash to burn.
I think lobbying success depends a lot of the quality of the arguments that you have and your personal abilities. Simply being in a position to tell a politician a good argument that the politician didn't know existed beforehand can change something even if you don't have much money.