Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#161

Post by DoreenMichele » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #159

DoreenMichele wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thank you for saying that. The problem runs deeper than you may realize. Even very well meaning people would walk up to me and ask me "Are you homeless? What's your name?" They didn't volunteer their name, address or socioeconomic status when asking such questions. They were trying to ascertain if I would need help. A much better question format that isn't so problematic would be along the lines of "I have X (cl…

The blanket example reminds me of all the handwringing about people "misusing" LLINs as a fishing aid, as though fighting malaria is more important than not starving. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2532690/

This study investigated the extent of bed net misuse in fishing villages.

Wow. There is something incredibly fucked up about funding a study into bed net misuse rather than a study on the dire need for more help with meeting basic necessities like adequate nourishment as evidenced by so-called bed net misuse.

Or, you know, the sarcastic reply: If you die of starvation, I guess you no longer need to worry about details like malaria.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#162

Post by gowld » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #39

GiveWell’s CEO’s compensation is 200k: http://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Meeting_2017_06_06... That, after working at a investment firm and having a BA in religion. Not sure that’s the skills and salary I would trust the use of the word « reason » and « science » with. Having a 200k salary in San Francisco definitely skews your vision of the world.

What part of investment firm and academic study of religions is incompatibility with reason and science? Both of those experiences suggest someone quite experienced at poring over large troves of documents to look for useful information, which is what Givewell does.

And how does salary affect reason and science?

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#163

Post by Viliam1234 » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:20 PM UTC

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #15

akvadrako wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting donors to make-a-wish actually value making one dying kid (and his support network) happy more than saving the lives of several? I doubt that's usually the case because if you consider it for a moment is seems so unfair and cruel. No, it's probably something else that motivates their decision...

Yeah, how dare donors use their money in ways they see fit! Let's make an organization that shames other organizations for spending in ways we find unsavory or inefficient.

The donors should be free to use their money in ways they see fit, and everyone else should be free to point out that there are several orders of magnitude more effective ways to help people.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#164

Post by gowld » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

438798275 wrote: post #111

gowld wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only genuine charity is invisible, how can we maintain a society with a culture of genuine charity? If charity is secret, it's too easy to simply not do charity, since there are no consequences, neither positive nor negative reinforcement. I have my suspicions about the PR motives of https://givingpledge.org/ , but ultimately, doing good in exchange for positive PR (a form of "buying advertising") is a deal I'…

> If the only genuine charity is invisible, how can we maintain a society with a culture of genuine charity? Why would you want to maintain a society that extols charity, 'genuine' or not? Wouldn't you rather live in a society that doesn't have a need to 'do good' as a cleanup procedure for the 'bad done.' Before you say that's a strawman argument, consider that charity exists because things that should be considered…

Can you clarify this post? I don't understand what it's arguing.

How are fundamental human rights "implemented"? Why would a "right" need an "implementation"?

You are making some argument about government working poorly? How is that relevant to charitable spending?

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#165

Post by tomcam » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

Viliam1234 wrote: post #155

tomcam wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The painful truth is that it is morally repugnant to donate. I hate saying this, by the way. If you had any experience with outreach, You would understand it is actually quite destructive to give them money, and it is much better to donate to, for example, Union Gospel Mission, a place in Seattle that does excellent homeless outreach. The city in fact contracts out to them for their services.

> The painful truth is that it is morally repugnant to donate. I hate saying this, by the way. I hate that you said it without explaining what you meant. :P Seriously, when you say "it is morally repugnant to donate" and "it is much better to donate to X" in the same paragraph, I am not sure what to think about it. Do you think that donating to X is still morally repugnant, although a bit less than donating to other…

Sorry, my comment was quite unclear. I meant it is dangerous to street people to give the money directly. It is much better to give it to you in the Stabley Schomann organization that knows how to deal with their problems.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#166

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #103

justinpombrio wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, to consider artificial intelligence to be a potential global catastrophe at all, let alone the single one requiring extra funding, is mostly unfounded. As another commenter points out, EA is not a single unified group, but rather a disparate set of people who are united by the belief that we should put money where it has the largest effect. Some , but not all, of them are convinced by the arguments in favo…

I assume that investing in AI risk is nonsense for one simple reason: I have yet to see a single study showing that a single undesired behavior has been stopped or even slowed down. DDOS attacks are as stupid as you can get from an intelligence point of view, and yet not a single proponent for AI risk has come up with a way to stop even a single one AFAIK. I haven't heard either of a single military program that has…

[deleted]

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#167

Post by ajonnav » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

Bernicus wrote: post #76

ajonnav wrote: post #24

I would recommend checking out the podcast ‘The 80,000 hours’ if you are interested in this kind of stuff. It’s hosted by Rob Wiblin who is the executive director at Effective Altruism. He talks to very interesting people (mostly academics) about “the world's most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them” (taken from his website).

Just to clarify, Rob is the Director of Research at the nonprofit, 80,000 Hours, whose aim is to help people have high impact careers. There is no organisation called Effective Altruism. Effective altruism is a social movement in the same way that environmentalism is a social movement, made up of many individuals, nonprofits and even for profits, working on different things, of which 80,000 Hours is just one. The pod…

Yes you are right; I meant to say the Center for Effective Altruism.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#168

Post by kbenson » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #131

kbenson wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to defend not giving money to the homeless, but isn't the calculation more complex than that? It's not just about how much money the bureaucracy eats, it's also how effectively the remaining portion is used, and I would think that would include actual resources delivered to people. More simply put, which helps more people and in a larger amount, $10 in the US or $5 in some extremely poor part of the world, where…

>Not to defend not giving money to the homeless Then I'll defend it. The money would be much better utilized donated to programs that try to target homelessness as a whole. The old "they'll just spend it on drugs/alcohol/etc" cliche is actually backed by studies: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/03/should-... Some points from the article: "We choose to donate money based on the level of perceived nee…

>> Not to defend not giving money to the homeless

> Then I'll defend it.

I really included that to cut off possible misinterpretations of my point before they began so I didn't have to waste time on counterpoints to some argument other than the one I was making. That said, tangents with interesting info dumps is one of my favorite parts of HN, so thanks. :)

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#169

Post by Nimitz14 » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #94

monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

> I think it's absolutely morally repugnant to walk past them and not give them money, because instead you're paying people to sit around thinking about AI. This is not a new argument. Sister Mary Jucunda, a Zambian nun, wrote to a NASA scientist (Ernst Stuhlinger) in the early 70's with a similar critique of funding for space research. You can read Ernst's cogent reply here: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-…

Not remotely applicable.

For one, so far everyone predicting doom about AI has been a layman a subject. Maybe you aren't aware, but this is a field that people do PhDs and get professorships in. Noone respected agrees with the doom-sayers.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#170

Post by justinpombrio » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #103

justinpombrio wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, to consider artificial intelligence to be a potential global catastrophe at all, let alone the single one requiring extra funding, is mostly unfounded. As another commenter points out, EA is not a single unified group, but rather a disparate set of people who are united by the belief that we should put money where it has the largest effect. Some , but not all, of them are convinced by the arguments in favo…

I assume that investing in AI risk is nonsense for one simple reason: I have yet to see a single study showing that a single undesired behavior has been stopped or even slowed down. DDOS attacks are as stupid as you can get from an intelligence point of view, and yet not a single proponent for AI risk has come up with a way to stop even a single one AFAIK. I haven't heard either of a single military program that has…

I'm confused. The research in question is "how can we make sure that a superintelligence would be morally aligned with humans". Why would dealing with DDOS attacks would be the right first step? It seems completely unrelated.