A flightless bird at the top of a tree is screwed, anyway :-/

Spit my tea on the keyboard.

Spot on analysis.

EAs focus on eliminating (or mitigating) suffering. The devil is in the definition of suffering.

You would have to change the entire culture of the continent to change their version of interdependence. This is a massive change. African culture has proven to be rather persistent so you would have an uphill battle. Is it possible that the imposition of a capitalist culture might create more suffering (from the African perspective) than relief?

I'm a capitalist. But I was born in a capitalist society and reared by those who shoved me out of the nest to encourage my ability to fly. Imposition of a very different culture on Africa could be tantamount to shoving a flightless bird from the nest at the top of the tree then referring to the resulting splat on the ground as creative destruction. One man's creative destruction is another man's disaster. Who gets to decide?

I like studies and think they are useful. I think EAs are motivated to do good and are motivated to believe that money will solve problems that are further away when they know that it does not solve them close to home.

Also, I think it is impossible to measure certain metrics. For instance, in Africa group interdependence is extremely important. Everyone helps everyone. It is known as Ubuntu in Southern Africa but is common throughout sub-Saharan Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29

Cash injections from outsiders harm this. But how could you possibly measure it? How could you measure the interdependency of a community? How could you measure the harm done to that critical interdependency?

How do you think the world would look differently when EAs put more value on helping then being seen as helping?

Ahh. I didn't understand the question.

EAs would help people very close to them with whom they can empathize. I mean empathize in the truest form of the word. They would be able to understand the plight of those they are helping, understand how they got there, and understand the complex consequences that flow from the administration of charity. Distortions occur with distance and differences.

But EAs are driven by a compulsion to do good so they are forced to reach further afield for problems to solve because they understand the complexities of the problems close to home (homelessness for instance or urban-education). They purposely blind themselves to this intractability by seeking problems far away and seeking solutions with layers of insulation from it. They hire professionals to deal with those frustrating details.

You understand intuitively what would happen if you went to a really bad neighborhood near you and simply gave out cash to poor people no questions asked. So you send it to Uganda with the naive belief that their problems are somehow easily solvable by the injection of cash. Your overwhelming desire to do good in the world blinds you to the fact that problems are as complex there as they are here.

I believe EAs really do want to help people and improve the world. But even more than that they want to be (seen as) altruists who are helping people and improving the world. And/or they want that wonderful drug-like jolt of endorphins produced by doing a good deed. Most importantly, they don't want to admit that they want to be seen as altruists and they consider it rude when someone points out the very obvious truth that the reason they are doing it is not to help people or improve the world, but to be seen helping people and to get the jolt of good feelings from it.

This is important because the disconnect between the stated desires and the true desires distort whatever help is being given. Those distortions seem irrelevant from the perspective of the giver. They are massive from the perspective of those being helped. Which perspective is more important?

My non-American wife frequently (and gently) mocks me by saying that we Americans (and Euros) are naive like children. And she's right. We spend so much energy projecting how we want the world to be that we fail to see how it actually is. We think we can fix things without understanding the harsh realities. We easily confuse the appearance of virtuousness with actually being virtuous.

This is the reason the "effective" people don't actually go into the aid business, they simply fund the aid business with the proceeds of their effectiveness. If they actually spent time on the ground they would see those distortions. Their handiwork would slowly dawn on them. And they would be appalled.

Apologies. I did not intend to call you a liar. Sorry if it came across that way.

Once we had overproduction someone decided that shipping grain to Africa is better than burning it but the grain doesn't get produced to feed Africans. It get's produced for other reasons.

Absolutely. We agree.

I don't know your industry, but let's say you are a Water Engineer in an American city. Now imagine that suddenly the Swiss developed portable desalination processing ships that created clean water and supply it to the whole of the U.S. for free... for generations. You lose your job and we as Americans lose the skills to supply water ourselves.

We are at the mercy of the benevolent Swiss who have their own reasons for providing us water. Their benevolence makes us weaker.

Why should I accept what she says rather than what, say, Jeffrey Sachs says?

In the end she is giving her opinion. I am giving mine. I am telling you what I saw and how I came to my conclusions. You can do with them as you choose.

The thing I find deeply troubling is that I know good people would not do what they are doing if they knew the consequences. They would not toss the quarter into the cup of the homeless guy.

It is very common for those outsiders who work on the front lines of aid/charity to talk (to rage!!!) about the fubar consequences while they are there together in the muck. But the moment they come home they sing a different tune. It is very frustrating to see that when they are back home and faced with their own deep investment in it, they forget the lessons. Very frustrating.

It succeeds at the goals it's designed to fulfill.

Is that tongue in cheek?

The program takes our desire to be good and uses it as a tool for a particular special interest. Yes, it fulfills its goals.