Do you think that made the action significantly more effective than the GiveWell charities?

Say there is a mosquito-net maker in small-town Africa.

That's the first stage at which I am most doubtful about Moyo's argument. Sure, one can postulate situations in which sending a lot of mosquito nets to Africa does a lot of damage by putting a lot of local mosquito-net makers out of business. But is that actually happening? (Or, failing that, is there good reason to think it would be happening if it weren't for charitable mosquito-net provision?)

The other point at which I am doubtful: let's suppose that supplying mosquito nets puts N people out of work per year. That's bad (unless N=0). But it also stops M people getting malaria per year. How do those effects balance out? Does Moyo make any attempt at such a calculation, or is she doing a cost-benefit analysis that completely ignores the benefits?

I want to help. More than you could ever know.

OK; in that case it sounds as if I have misjudged your motivations (and perhaps also how broadly you are claiming that the best charity is no charity; that's still not altogether clear to me). It is possible that your choice of username influenced me in the direction of thinking you more likely to be advocating something like egoism :-).

How do you feel about charitable activity that only supplies its beneficiaries with useful resources? For instance, two of GiveWell's current recommendations are:

• A charity that provides people in poor malaria-afflicted parts of the world with bednets impregnated with insecticide.
• A charity that simply gives money to poor people. (In one-off donations, which are explicitly intended to enable them to do things they otherwise couldn't -- though there are no strings attached.)

These seem to me like they don't get in the way of anything the beneficiaries could have done for themselves, and the available evidence seems to suggest that in fact they do substantially more good than harm.

This motivation on the part of the missionaries to be selfless (an impossible task) is THE cause of the problem. While some believe it is possible to align dissimilar motivations to create good ends, there are plenty of Africans who say that contrasting motivations have tied the continent into thorny knots. (see Dambisa Moyo)

We succeed to elimate small pox through Western inspired aid.

Africa is much better than it was 40 years ago. As hand Rosling says, most people on the West know less than chimpanzee of the success of helping Africa.

Agreed. I was talking about what the Effective Altruism movement orients toward, not the semantic definition of altruism.

Why not just be absolutely anonymous?

Accountability matters.

How very convenient that the best thing for millions of desperately poor people is for comfortable Westerners like us to do nothing to help them.

(It may well be true in some cases, but I do find it striking how very little evidence seems to be needed to convince some people that the best charity is no charity.)

This motivation [...] to be selfless [...] is THE cause of the problem.

I don't see how. I'll assume, at least for the sake of argument, that your account of how these things work out is accurate; how would it go any better if the volunteers had different, less selfless, motivation? And why blame the situation on the volunteers' selflessness rather than on any of the other elements in the situation -- the locals' preference for cheaper but worse medical care, the offers for the physicians to emigrate, the fact that the local physicians are dependent on money from the locals rather than being paid by the government as in some Western countries, the fact that the volunteers eventually go away?

Actually, I'm a bit confused by the description of the process. So, the problem is that the volunteers turn up, provide cheap medical care thus putting the local physician out of business, and then go away. If the volunteers stayed around, the locals would have cheap medical care all the time and presumably that's a good outcome. Now, why does the local physician emigrate to the West rather than just moving down the road to another village that doesn't have western volunteers? Is it because there's more money to be made by emigrating? (In that case, surely the temptation is there even without the western volunteers.) Is it because the village down the road also has volunteers undercutting the physician? (If that's commonly the case, then a large fraction of the country must be getting free medical care from these volunteers -- so are you sure they aren't doing more good than harm overall?) Is it because the village down the road has its own physician? (If that's commonly the case, then the country isn't so desperately short of physicians as you describe.) I dunno -- I'm just having trouble seeing how your account fits together. Is it actually well founded on evidence?

The only way to be a true altruist is to be anonymous.

Would those African rural outposts have been better off if their first-aid volunteers had all been wearing masks and keeping their identities secret?

This motivation [...] to be selfless [...] is THE cause of the problem.

I don't see how. I'll assume, at least for the sake of argument, that your account of how these things work out is accurate; how would it go any better if the volunteers had different, less selfless, motivation? And why blame the situation on the volunteers' selflessness rather than on any of the other elements in the situation -- the locals' preference for cheaper but worse medical care, the offers for the physicians to emigrate, the fact that the local physicians are dependent on money from the locals rather than being paid by the government as in some Western countries, the fact that the volunteers eventually go away?

Actually, I'm a bit confused by the description of the process. So, the problem is that the volunteers turn up, provide cheap medical care thus putting the local physician out of business, and then go away. If the volunteers stayed around, the locals would have cheap medical care all the time and presumably that's a good outcome. Now, why does the local physician emigrate to the West rather than just moving down the road to another village that doesn't have western volunteers? Is it because there's more money to be made by emigrating? (In that case, surely the temptation is there even without the western volunteers.) Is it because the village down the road also has volunteers undercutting the physician? (If that's commonly the case, then a large fraction of the country must be getting free medical care from these volunteers -- so are you sure they aren't doing more good than harm overall?) Is it because the village down the road has its own physician? (If that's commonly the case, then the country isn't so desperately short of physicians as you describe.) I dunno -- I'm just having trouble seeing how your account fits together. Is it actually well founded on evidence?

The only way to be a true altruist is to be anonymous.

Would those African rural outposts have been better off if their first-aid volunteers had all been wearing masks and keeping their identities secret?

EA doesn't do that kind of thing. The currently popular idea is buying malaria nets. I don't think there's a large indigenous malaria net industry that is being displaced by this.

You're actually right--giving Africans free things can destroy the indigenous economy by making it hard for natives to make money--but not right about EA.