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 o...
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 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 s...
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 f...
I've got to admit, I love this idea because it is so very very honest. It gets to the heart of what EAs really want. High status without crass status symbols. That's probably why your fellow EAs are cringing and attacking. Nobody wants to admit that their status symbol is actually a status symbol.
I get it! It's so darn frustrating that you can't really distinguish, you know, the really good people from the regular schmoes. A gesture would be helpful.
For what it's worth, altruists would not do a handshake. That's too fez-headed Masonic. They'd bow. While gently cupping their oversized hearts.
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...
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 w...
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.
Yes, I believe the government efforts with regard to ebola were more effective. I also believe that many government programs are terrible. We buy excess corn here and give it for free there, killing local markets.
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?
Pick an industry that is thriving in, say, South Africa and compare it to the same industry in a high-aid country like Uganda. Inevitably you will find that the more sector-aid they receive, the worse their industries produce. It is hard to out-compete free. I gave the Malawi-medical example below but they are everywhere.
I was there this time last yea...
Dambisa Moyo specifically addresses the bednet issue in her excellent book Dead Aid.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123758895999200083
Even what may appear as a benign intervention on the surface can have damning consequences. Say there is a mosquito-net maker in small-town Africa. Say he employs 10 people who together manufacture 500 nets a week. Typically, these 10 employees support upward of 15 relatives each. A Western government-inspired program generously supplies the affected region with 100,000 free mosquito nets. This promptly puts the mosquito net...
Western governments and governmental organizations did so. We had skin in the game. Same with Ebola.
Words matter. It steals the positive cultural connotations of the word altruism without actually being altruistic.
It exploits the gray area between being vs. seeming to be. There is a word for that. It's called lying.
Accountability matters.
Being public does not provide accountability. Is Zuckerberg being held accountable for the Newark schools debacle? No. People are saying, "At least he tried."
Here's the thing.... We understand the idea of creative destruction in other realms but fail to see it when our attention is attracted, like a bull to the red cape, to the people who are suffering in the destruction phase. Propping up a dysfunctional system is worse than letting it fail and rebuilding entirely.
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.
To the contrary, it is very inconvenient.
We naturally want to help. I want to help. More than you could ever know. After being on the ground in Africa for a while I just realized that:
Most of the things I could do are more harmful than allowing those desperately poor people to solve their problems themselves.
There is an upward spiral of confidence, strength and capability when someone solves their ow
If the volunteers stayed around, the locals would have cheap medical care all the time and presumably that's a good outcome.
No, that's a terrible outcome. Long-term solutions to persistent, difficult problems come about when capable people with skin in the game take action. Malawian doctors have skin in the African game but are sidelined when Milwaukeean dairy farmers fill in for free.
Further, when we look closer to home we understand that there are many problems for which the best possible solution is to do nothing. That misfit brother who has to ...
Would those African rural outposts have been better off if their first-aid volunteers had all been wearing masks and keeping their identities secret?
They would have to believe that they could obscure their actions from their all-seeing, all-knowing god since their motivations were driven by the belief that they were gaining status toward a day of ultimate reckoning.
Those outposts would have been better had the amateurs stayed home.
EA doesn't do that kind of thing.
Ipse dixit and motivated reasoning.
Why not just be absolutely anonymous?
The name Effective >Altruism suggests that followers are somehow being altruistic. Both the common usage and dictionary definitions of altruism are clear. Wikipedia lists the word altruism as synonymous with selflessness. So to answer your first question, doing altruistic things for personally beneficial reasons is simply not altruism. It is the opposite.
It may be tempting to dismiss my argument as semantics. It is so much more. This gets to the core of what (I believe ) Less Wrong is all about. Human beings want to be good. Our culture tell...
Scratching the surface of motivation reveals a troubling catch-22.
Selflessness is a key element for altruism. Without selflessness the person would not be an altruist. They would be doing good for some personal reason. A truly selfless person would not promote their Effective Altruism since the status earned from others knowing would be a form of repayment for the EA.
What if you were a completely anonymous EA? A useful game might be to notice when you are tempted to mention your EA status. That is when the true motivation rears it head.
I've had th...
It's simply "work first, fun later" on a larger scale.
It is possible that you are leaving out an important piece of the equation?
Debt first, work second, fun much later if, and only if, you are able to avoid the hedonic inflation that so often infects those who pursue careers for prestige.
Spit my tea on the keyboard.