anon85 comments on Taking Effective Altruism Seriously - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Salemicus 07 June 2015 06:59AM

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Comment author: anon85 07 June 2015 10:14:47PM 1 point [-]

The first is: more wasteful economically. This seems pretty robust, investments in sub-Saharan Africa have historically generated much less wealth than investments in other countries. Moreover wealth continues to grow via reinvestment.

It's not clear what you mean by this. Do you mean investments in Africa have generated less wealth for the investor? That might be true, but it doesn't mean they have generated less wealth overall. How would you measure this?

he second is: more wasteful ethically. This is harder to defend, but I think it is a reasonable conclusion though 90% confidence is a bit silly. While more wealth does result in decreased marginal returns on utility, it also results in faster growth. It's harder to say which effect dominates. Giving to sub-Saharans is a tradeoff between long term growth in wealth and short term utils. As people get more wealthy, they give more (in absolute terms) to charity. Therefore on the margin is better to increase the amount of wealth in the world (which will increase the amount that people give).

I believe the price of saving a QALY has been increasing much faster than the growth of capital. (Does anyone have a source?) This means it is most effective to donate money now.

On a meta level, arguments against donating now are probably partly motivated by wishful thinking by people who don't feel like donating money, and should be scrutinized heavily.

Comment author: pianoforte611 08 June 2015 01:53:49AM 1 point [-]

The rate of return on the stock market is around 10%. This is much faster than the rate of growth of sub-Saharan economies. Actually foreign aid might have a negative rate of return since most of the transfers are consumed rather than reinvested. Which isn't a problem per say - eventually you have to convert capital into QALYs even if that means you stop growing it (if you are an effective altruist). The question is how much, and when?

I didn't actually come up with the argument that investing now and donating later is more efficient. Robin Hanson did, and there has been some back and forth there which I highly recommend (so as not to retread over old arguments).

I believe the price of saving a QALY has been increasing much faster than the growth of capital. (Does anyone have a source?) This means it is most effective to donate money now.

Even if QALYs per dollar decrease exponentially and faster than the growth of capital (which you've asserted without argument - I simply think that no one knows), there is still the issue of whether investment followed by donation (to high marginal QALY causes), is more effective than direct donation. Its a very difficult optimization problem and while I don't know the answer to it, I'm disappointed by how overconfident people are that they know the answer.

Comment author: anon85 08 June 2015 12:11:21PM *  0 points [-]

The rate of return on the stock market is around 10%

You didn't adjust for inflation; it's actually around 6 or 7%.

This is much faster than the rate of growth of sub-Saharan economies.

Depends on the country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product#/media/File:Gdp_real_growth_rate_2007_CIA_Factbook.PNG

Actually foreign aid might have a negative rate of return since most of the transfers are consumed rather than reinvested. Which isn't a problem per say - eventually you have to convert capital into QALYs even if that means you stop growing it (if you are an effective altruist). The question is how much, and when?

Yes, I agree. This is what I was getting at.

Robin Hanson did, and there has been some back and forth there which I highly recommend (so as not to retread over old arguments).

Thanks for the link! I will read through it.

(Edit: I read through it. It didn't say anything I didn't already know. In particular, it never argues that investing now to donate later is good in practice; it only argues this under the assumption that if QALY/dollar remains constant. This is obvious, though.)

Even if QALYs per dollar decrease exponentially and faster than the growth of capital (which you've asserted without argument - I simply think that no one knows)

That seems to me to be almost certainly true (e.g. malnutrition and disease have decreased a lot over the last 50 years, and without them there are less ways to buy cheap QALYs). However, you're right that I didn't actually research this.

there is still the issue of whether investment followed by donation (to high marginal QALY causes), is more effective than direct donation.

Huh? If we're assuming QALY/dollar decreases faster than your dollars increase, then doesn't it follow that you should buy QALYs now? I don't understand your point here.

Comment author: pianoforte611 08 June 2015 01:18:01PM 2 points [-]

This is much faster than the rate of growth of sub-Saharan economies.

Depends on the country:

You cannot cherry pick a single year (a pretty non-representative year given the recession) in which the growth of a few sub-Saharan African countries was faster than the average growth of the stock market. to refute the claim that the stock market grows faster than sub-Saharan economies. A more complete data set shows that indeed the sub-Saharan economy has grown much slower than the stock market. This shouldn't be a controversial point.

Huh? If we're assuming QALY/dollar decreases faster than your dollars increase, then doesn't it follow that you should buy QALYs now? I don't understand your point here.

So what you are arguing is that the most efficient use of money to gain QALYs (not the average) has decreased exponentially and faster than the growth of capital over time? That seems very difficult to argue while taking into account increased knowledge and technology. But I have no idea how to calculate that.

Comment author: anon85 08 June 2015 04:04:39PM 0 points [-]

You cannot cherry pick a single year (a pretty non-representative year given the recession) in which the growth of a few sub-Saharan African countries was faster than the average growth of the stock market.

I didn't cherry-pick anything; that was the first google image result, so it's the one I linked to. I didn't think it's any different from a typical year. Is it? If so, what was special that year? If you're concerned that the US was in a recession, you can simply compare sub-Saharan Africa to the typical 6-7% stock market returns instead of comparing to the GDP growth of the US in that year.

So what you are arguing is that the most efficient use of money to gain QALYs (not the average) has decreased exponentially and faster than the growth of capital over time?

Yes!

That seems very difficult to argue while taking into account increased knowledge and technology. But I have no idea how to calculate that.

I don't claim to be able to exactly calculate it, but some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that it is true. For example, consider this from slatestarcodex:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/05/investment-and-inefficient-charity/

[...] in the 1960s, the most cost-effective charity was childhood vaccinations, but now so many people have donated to this cause that 80% of children are vaccinated and the remainder are unreachable for really good reasons (like they’re in violent tribal areas of Afghanistan or something) and not just because no one wants to pay for them. In the 1960s, iodizing salt might have been the highest-utility intervention, but now most of the low-iodine areas have been identified and corrected. While there is still much to be done, we have run out of interventions quite as easy and cost-effective as those. And one day, God willing, we will end malaria and maybe we will never see a charity as effective as the Against Malaria Fund again.

While I don't have the exact numbers, this seems to me to be self-evidently true if you know any history (to the point where I would say it is the onus of the "invest instead of donating" camp to prove this false).

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