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wallowinmaya comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong Discussion
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My preferred state for Africa would be that all its inhabitants are happy, rich, etc. and live in utopia, of course. What do you think of me? I don't have a clue how to achieve utopia in Africa or anywhere else and I don't have any strong political opinions in general.
Edit: I just reread your post and it seems that I misunderstood your intentions when I read it the first time. I thought you wanted us to guess which beliefs Vladimir_M or folks with similar views might hold. (I therefore tried to think of views that are disturbing and at least somewhat reasonable) It follows that I don't endorse all of the above mentioned views which I thought I said also in the original comment.
But, I'll be honest: 4 and 7 are probably bad ideas. 1 and 2 could have bad unintended consequences. The first sentence in 3 is true, but I don't think we should stop all international aid despite its low effectiveness. (e.g. the "1 laptop per child"-idea is pretty awesome). 5 is also true, we should encourage more women to become scientists, CEOs, etc. nonetheless. IMHO most women are not aggressive and ambitious enough and these traits are obviously culturally malleable, although with a strong genetical component.
Oh, I just realized that lots of people read my comment and now think that I endorse slavery, sex with children and the extermination of the human race. Hmmm.... kinda sucks.
If the main problem with international aid is low IQ and conscientiousness (NB -- not conceding this), then that is just evidence that foreign aid should focus first on things that affect this. IQ appears to negatively correlate with rates of parasitic infection, and also with exposure to mercury. Lead exposure increases impulsiveness, so I expect it correlates with low conscientiousness. So, wiping out parasitic diseases and metals abatement, among other things, should probably be high-priority forms of aid.
prenatal nutrition is huge too but AFAIK has been actively fought against precisely because it implies that the problem is low-IQ which is a no-no.
I haven't heard that before, any reference?
Unable to find one, it could well be untrue.
Edit: this information was communicated to me by a person working in a prenatal nutrition charity, which caused me to assume it was legit. Their own model of "fought against" might have been biased.
I agree. It would be great if international aid organizations adopted the methods of Givewell or GWWC. (BTW, I think one of the greater problems with international aid is that it distorts incentives and increases corruption.)
Lobbying for thermometer export ban = most efficient charity ever?
Now we should both relax. In retrospect it's painfully obvious that I should've chosen the charitable interpretation* on the basis of your comment's general impersonal nature and your history here. However, I was already polemizing for polemics' sake elsewhere, so the monkey brain decided to shift fire onto a target of oppotunity too.
-* I wholeheartedly agree that this is indeed bullshit rationalists say, yeah.
Of course I agree in practice, but in a completely bullshit binary situation where it's either all the current aid, both laptops and the substandard food etc, vs no aid at all, I'd say that no aid at all probably does less harm.
No problem, I'm the one to blame since I misread your post. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have read the post on melatonin :-)
Agree