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The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

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Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#91

Post by dzhiurgis »

jbhatab wrote: post #77
justinator wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only question for the Gates Foundation is this: Didn't Mr. Gates make a vast amount of his incredible wealth using questionable and indeed: illegal business practices? There's the right place at the right time aspect of Mr. Gates' situation, but there's also bullish nature of it. Can Mr. Gates now be seen on the moral high road, simply because of the way he's redistributing the wealth he attained (again: sometimes…

Irrelevant. We're talking about what he is doing while on top. There are more than enough examples of people on top that are doing nearly nothing to better the world.

Steve Jobs used to claim that best charity is doing business.

I (currently) think that best I can do is invest in myself, a.i. skip entertainment and study hard things.

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#92

Post by danieltillett »

technomancy wrote: post #90
danieltillett wrote: post #68

The greatest good will be accomplished by developing synthetic labour (AI). This will generate so much profit that even a tiny taxation rate (0.001%) will allow everyone to live as billionaires do now and allow us to solve all other problems caused by (relative) poverty.

Right, because the human race has a really good track record of allowing the benefits of technological productivity increases to impact the poor in a positive way.

Have you ever wondered why we are all so much richer today (even the poor) than in the past? It is not because people decided the way to solve poverty was charity. It is only because we have replaced human labor with artificial labor.

More seriously once you have synthetic labor all the reasons for scarcity and exploitation of the poor end. Sure there will still be people who are on the bottom of society's pecking order, but their actual standard of living will be far beyond those of our richest today.

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#93

Post by technomancy »

danieltillett wrote: post #92
technomancy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because the human race has a really good track record of allowing the benefits of technological productivity increases to impact the poor in a positive way.

Have you ever wondered why we are all so much richer today (even the poor) than in the past? It is not because people decided the way to solve poverty was charity. It is only because we have replaced human labor with artificial labor. More seriously once you have synthetic labor all the reasons for scarcity and exploitation of the poor end. Sure there will still be people who are on the bottom of society's pecking or…

I think I get what you're saying, but even in Star Trek this doesn't work without a source of essentially-perpetual energy.

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#94

Post by mattmanser »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #39
mattmanser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've redefined a word. There's nothing selfish about doing something selfless because it's not being done in the 'optimum' way (as defined by you). It might be inefficient, but it's not selfish. Regardless of your linguistic tricks, would they even have the motivation to make money on wall street? Would your 'optimum' plan even work with their personality? Is it actually optimal or merely fantasy? You'd be better o…

Oh well, you're not convinced. It is however the entire point of the OP. We might consider similar acts like eco-tourism, or disaster tourism, and so on. Where one spends enormous effort and money to visit the less-fortunate and go through the motions of helping. Arguably, to feel better about oneself. In those cases its clearly pretty selfish, and clearly better to have simply donated the money to a real charity ins…

Convinced? You're committed a magestic logical fallacy. Sorry you don't understand the mistake you've made and you're going to continue sneering at good people.

Don't switch from volunteering to disaster tourism. There are millions of people who volunteer, and only a handful of people who travel overseas to help.

What have you done recently? Do you actually donate? And did you read about the money the Red Cross can't explain? Is it really better donating money?

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#95

Post by danieltillett »

technomancy wrote: post #93
danieltillett wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever wondered why we are all so much richer today (even the poor) than in the past? It is not because people decided the way to solve poverty was charity. It is only because we have replaced human labor with artificial labor. More seriously once you have synthetic labor all the reasons for scarcity and exploitation of the poor end. Sure there will still be people who are on the bottom of society's pecking or…

I think I get what you're saying, but even in Star Trek this doesn't work without a source of essentially-perpetual energy.

It is pretty lucky that we are only 93 million miles away from exactly that :)

I actually did the calculations back in the early 1990s of how many dollars you could generate by capturing all the solar output combined with synthetic labor. It is something on the order of 10^24 times the entire world GDP. When you have that level of resources then scarcity ceases to be a concern.

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#96

Post by notahacker »

reddog wrote: post #75

Wow. This is a tough crowd. Its not enough to generously give your time and money to charity, you have to have an effective data driven approach to your giving or you suck. And if you can bill at $500 an hour, no helping out at the soup kitchen for you -- that an inefficient use of societies resources. Back to your cubicle, work some extra hours and give it to whatever causes our models say are best. Kind of a cold a…

I wonder how many of the critics of ineffective altruists actually give more to society than the overqualified soup kitchen volunteers...

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#97

Post by notahacker »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #52
justinator wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a thought question: You are: a higher up at a very large company, whose process in some ways causes human suffering. Let's say the product, or byproduct causes cancer, and part of your job even, is to dispel the people who call your company out. Who it better for you to, (a Continue working the job, giving a very unreasonable amount of your salary to charity, which incidentally, attempts to research ways this…

a2) Continue working the job for now, donate a substantial fraction of your income to charity, climb the ladder as rapidly as possible, and work to change the company in a direction you consider preferable if you think it's salvageable. (While there's a small set of jobs that are nearly irredeemable, such as the folks in a tobacco company or free-to-play gaming company researching how to make their product more addic…

You bet you could turn a tobacco company into something that's a net positive for society in 8-10 years? I'd like to see you try.

No, really, I actually would. I'm pretty sure it would do more good for humanity than working in computer science and donating your spare income to a cause you believe is an efficient use of your disposable income, even if you're particularly well paid or hit the startup jackpot...

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#98

Post by rikkus »

The definition of charity seems to be giving money to those in need, but I prefer a less specific definition: Helping those in need. To do this, you can give money to 'charities', or you could perhaps try to help with systemic problems by attempting to effect wider change: If you're able to influence your country's government, isn't this more likely to have more effect, especially in the long run?

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#99

Post by notahacker »

duopixel wrote: post #11
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

This resonates with me. I remember reading of a Stanford graduate who was delivering meals to indigents in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I immediately thought: how selfish. To give up a possibly lucrative employment in finance, so she could personally experience charitable work, was a net loss to that organization. Why not work on Wall Street and donate 90% of her income instead? This is a real choice. Joining the…

Charity grunt work brings forward compassion, acceptance, frugality and other qualities that wouldn't arise from working in finance. If you don't see the problem up close you won't want to donate 90% of your income. Furthermore, smart people with the conviction to solve the problem and the guts to get their hands dirty eventually accomplish great things. Norman Borlaug comes to mind.

That's the bit that gets missed. Smart Stanford grads might not be initially effective at doling out food, but sometimes their smarts can do a lot more for their supply chain or donor base than their future cashflow from a conventional job.

Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?

#100

Post by netcan »

A point on "best."

There seems to be a lot of interest, some coming from the tech culture of evaluating charity and its efficiency. This is a good thing and could make a lot of difference. But for an individual that wants to give, you don't necessarily need it. You just need to find a destination for your donation. Try to understand that single organisation.

I like the idea of simple things where the money = thing equation is understandable. For example, I have a distant cousin in the Philippines who builds "houses" for squatters with arrangements with land owners. It started after the storm. He lives locally and understands building. It's about £400 per hut. Most of the cost is labour. Materials are largely donated. The crew are locals that he knows. The recipients are living rough otherwise.

This may not scale to millions, but it works for individual donations. IE, you can find a charity that has the capacity to take your donation. Understand what they do and make an effective choice. It's a much easier problem to solve than the "how to make global donations more effective" problem and is really the problem at hand when you make a choice.

Also..

Why was I doing it? Maybe the donation was the equivalent of an agnostic’s prayer, on the off-chance the supernatural listens to altruism.

I like that. I'd apply an atheist version for myself. A prayer to human solidarity and fraternity, the things I hope for. I don't expect to make these things happen personally, but I can offer my prayer.

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