GiveWell's top recommended charity is giving direct aid to poor Africans. This may make their lives more pleasant, but is very unlikely to have any long-term effect - Africa is poor because it has bad institutions, not inadequate consumption.

Have you looked at the actual arguments put forth by GiveWell? The money isn't mainly used for consumption but often used by people to start businesses that they otherwise couldn't start.

Empowering individuals to start businesses has advantages over funneling money into bad existing institutions.

Campaign adverts allow politicians to get their message out unfiltered by the news media - which has its own agenda.

I do value checks and balance and I don't want unfiltered lies.

But presenting election information in a way that doesn't speak to the electorate is a net loss, ceteris paribus.

The problem is that the value of the time of the person answering the phone isn't priced into the calculations of the person running the query.

Oh come on, this is marginal at best. Did you object to the census on the same grounds, or is this just mood affiliation?

I think the census does provide valuable data. More targeted political ads don't provide much value.