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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?

#111

Post by fizixer »

bhouston wrote: post #22
reasonattlm wrote: post #7

Clearly the SENS Research Foundation, as a 501c3 charity that gives you the 80/20 win for a good expectation value for your dollars to do the most good in speeding up progress towards ending age-related disease. If you want to do better than the SRF at assigning dollars to speeding up progress towards ending age-related disease, you're going to have to spend some years reading research and making connections. (I wish…

SENS Research Foundation is made for relatively wealthy people who already have money and health who want to live longer. Do they have any successes or measures of efficiency? It seems like science fiction pie in the sky research by a small group of true believers.

> SENS Research Foundation is made for relatively wealthy people who already have money and health who want to live longer.

Ignoring the fact that you're pulling statements out of a hat, and assuming what you said is true, which one of the following two scenarios would you rather be in:

- A world where fundamental research on aging hasn't been done and people get sick and start to die between the ages of 60-90.

- A world where, as a result of some secretive research and development of medical technology, a handful of people (the rich ones) seem to be living a healthy life all the way up to 180-210, and the public starts demanding that such research be made available to everyone.

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

#112

Post by drodgers »

mmrasheed wrote: post #107

My two cents... Open your startup in the third world, developing countries. Or, at least lead some people in those regions to grow their own problem solving skills with IT and engineering. Or, travel to those regions with your targeted donation savings and see the suffering of humans. If charity means donating the money we think we no longer need, then we should go for any of the charity foundations mentioned in othe…

* Technical experts won't necessarily be good at teaching people to use technology, or helping to set up infrastructure in third world countries.

* Other people (eg. teachers) will be better-placed to teach technical expertise to people in the third world.

* Technology isn't necessarily the most valuable thing to people in the third world - often they need simple things like corrugated steel roofs, anti-parasitics drugs and malaria nets.

* Technical experts are the best people at creating technology (tautologically) and they'll be more productive at that than they would be at any other task (and more productive any anyone else would be at creating technology).

So the elegant, effective solution is to have technical experts apply their technical expertise where it's most needed, get paid as much as possible (while doing useful work) and donate a significant portion of their earnings to fund education and development experts (who would otherwise be doing something less valuable) to go to where they're needed and help poor people in whatever way they need help.

Sending technologists to the third world will do about as much good as sending academics to the farms. May it would be spiritually enriching for the technologists, but a lot of technology will go unbuilt and a lot of poor people will miss out on deworming pills because that money went to fund plane tickets.

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

#113

Post by alphapapa »

fizixer wrote: post #110
baddox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you assume that ending age-related disease is the best cause, you also have to estimate the likelihood of them actually being successful and weight your recommendations by that likelihood.

Just the way we should've estimated the likelihood of curing cancer before we started pouring money in it. Probably we did, and then based on the importance of the matter, poured in billions of dollars anyway. SENS approach is essentially suggesting something better than that. According to them, pouring billions of dollars into individual age-related diseases (e.g., age-related onset of cancer) is the wrong way to go…

It's amazing how some people are trying to reduce the population and others are trying to help people live longer. Wouldn't it be interesting to get them all in a room together...

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

#114

Post by alphapapa »

fizixer wrote: post #111
bhouston wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SENS Research Foundation is made for relatively wealthy people who already have money and health who want to live longer. Do they have any successes or measures of efficiency? It seems like science fiction pie in the sky research by a small group of true believers.

> SENS Research Foundation is made for relatively wealthy people who already have money and health who want to live longer. Ignoring the fact that you're pulling statements out of a hat, and assuming what you said is true, which one of the following two scenarios would you rather be in: - A world where fundamental research on aging hasn't been done and people get sick and start to die between the ages of 60-90. - A w…

That's actually a very interesting question. And it's actually not clear that the second scenario would be better. A lot of problems would come along with people living twice as long. And who's to say that the other people would be able to afford that tech, even if it were freely available?

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

#115

Post by willmacaskill »

Hey - I'm the guy described in the post - if anyone wants to ask me about anything to do with effective altruism, 80,000 Hours, Giving What We Can, GiveWell (which I didn't cofound but is part of the same charitable movement), or what Derek Thompson's household habits are, please do so! :)

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

#116

Post by alphapapa »

Retra wrote: post #63
rayiner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What indication is there that living longer would serve the greater good? People living longer = fewer births assuming stable population, and a greater percentage of life spent in older years. Even if you can make those older years healthy, you'll never be able to capture the uncomplicated wonder and joy of childhood and adolescence. You'd literally be trading a teenager's first crush for an 80-year old's third marri…

Uh, that's the whole point of caring about the greater good: to help people live longer. If you're having some sort of existential crisis wherein you honestly can't see any reason people should live, then take some time to reassess your priorities in depth. Because you're questioning the only real moral principle humanity has.

It depends on what you believe. If you believe that there is life after death, and it's a better one, then living longer on earth isn't necessarily better. I think if you talked to a lot of people who are actually elderly and actually nearing natural death, some of them would wish for another lifetime's worth of years (if it came with renewed health), but some of them would be ready to move on.

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

#117

Post by willmacaskill »

waxymonkeyfrog wrote: post #3
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…

Joe, this is Derek, the author of the piece linked above. I think you make a good point. When I first heard Will explain "earning to give," a part of me considered it off-putting and radical, but I've come to see it as an expansive view of doing good, because I think there are a lot of people who (a) wouldn't be good at charitable work or (b) would be good at charitable work but are better at - and enjoy! - other wor…

Hi Derek! Nice to see you here!|

I actually already think that earning to give isn't the best path for most altruistic people who would be willing to work anywhere. This is a change of view from a few years ago. The reasons are: i) quite a few people are already very successfully earning to give and need really amazing opportunities to donate to; ii) a rising number of very wealthy people are donating most of their wealth (e.g. Giving Pledge). This means that on the margin we really need more talent to spend these donations well.

What I do think is: - donating to highly effective charities (e.g. GiveWell recommendations) is a means by which anyone who's got a job in an affluent country can make a truly massive difference - earning to give should be an option that's at least on the table for altruistically minded folks - as you say, for people who would really enjoy very high-earning careers they shouldn't necessarily think "well I should do something I enjoy less because what I'm doing now doesn't have much social value." (I shudder when I see high-flying lawyers or financiers quitting and doing non-profit consulting outside their area of expertise). Via earning to give, these people really can have their cake and eat it. - some careers are dual-benefit - e.g. entrepreneurship can generate huge social value in and of itself, and also be very lucrative - for young people, the most important thing in the short term if you want to do good in the long term is to build skills, and you often build more skills in for-profits than in non-profits. While there, you should earn to give.

Overall I think that at the moment maybe 10% of the altruistic people who would be happy working anywhere should aim to earn to give long-term. It depends a lot on cause, though - some areas are more money-constrained; some more talent-constrained.

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

#118

Post by reasonattlm »

alphapapa wrote: post #114
fizixer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SENS Research Foundation is made for relatively wealthy people who already have money and health who want to live longer. Ignoring the fact that you're pulling statements out of a hat, and assuming what you said is true, which one of the following two scenarios would you rather be in: - A world where fundamental research on aging hasn't been done and people get sick and start to die between the ages of 60-90. - A w…

That's actually a very interesting question. And it's actually not clear that the second scenario would be better. A lot of problems would come along with people living twice as long. And who's to say that the other people would be able to afford that tech, even if it were freely available?

Actually, SENS-like repair therapies would be mass-produced infusions for the most part. They'd be the same for everyone, a mix of small molecule drugs targeting metabolic waste (amyloids, cross-links, lipofuscin, etc) and gene therapies (allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes). Some replacement of stem cell populations most likely, which would be a tissue sample, send to the clinic, get back cells for injection.

If you look at comparable technologies today, autologous stem cell transplant is the most expensive, and you can get that for a few tens of thousands of dollars via medical tourism. Other points of comparison are, say, biologics for autoimmune conditions, which are enormously finicky to mass-produce at the moment and presently run to a few thousand dollars per shot or infusion. They'll get cheaper. Generic drugs, widely produced and past their legal protections, on the other hand cost a few cents to a few dollars for a dose.

For SENS-like repair technologies you're looking at one treatment every few decades if it's very efficient at clearing damage, or perhaps every few years if it isn't.

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

#119

Post by willmacaskill »

mmrasheed wrote: post #107

My two cents... Open your startup in the third world, developing countries. Or, at least lead some people in those regions to grow their own problem solving skills with IT and engineering. Or, travel to those regions with your targeted donation savings and see the suffering of humans. If charity means donating the money we think we no longer need, then we should go for any of the charity foundations mentioned in othe…

I think that startups where the users are principally people in poor countries is a very promising area for socially minded people to work in.

Startups usually (but not always) generate value for their users in the form of consumer surplus. Because of diminishing marginal utility of money, $1 of consumer surplus in poor countries is worth 10x or more than $1 of consumer surplus in rich countries.

Some examples: Wave (YC alum) is making sending remittances cheaper (taking only 3% rather than 10% like Western Union). $0.4 trillion in remittances are sent every year. Segovia is making benefit payments in India more efficient, so that only 10% in lost in transactions rather than 50% as is currently the case. Both of these in my view have massive social value (and are run by people in the effective altruism community).

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

#120

Post by willmacaskill »

vacri wrote: post #17
waxymonkeyfrog wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joe, this is Derek, the author of the piece linked above. I think you make a good point. When I first heard Will explain "earning to give," a part of me considered it off-putting and radical, but I've come to see it as an expansive view of doing good, because I think there are a lot of people who (a) wouldn't be good at charitable work or (b) would be good at charitable work but are better at - and enjoy! - other wor…

As a counterpoint, a friend of mine was knocked by when she volunteered for a local charity. "What qualifications do you have?" The question sounds elitist, but the point was that charities often have metric shitloads of untrained helping hands. What they need, right now, is people that know how to manage, run finances, computer networking. Advanced skillsets. I actually think the 'earning to give' mindset would real…

I think that's a really important concern. At 80,000 Hours when we encourage people to earn to give we ensure they're embedded in the effective altruism community, take things like the Giving What We Can Pledge and so on - mechanisms by which to ensure that our future selves don't fail to live up to our ideals.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the rate of people becoming disillusioned when they do direct work in charities also (anecdotally seems to me) to be very high. Reason is that it's often very hard, often you don't feel like you're having much of an impact. Whereas if you enjoy working in the lucrative career you're in, the 'sacrifice' of donating even 50% isn't really that great, so it's potentially easier to continue in that path. I'm genuinely really unsure which has the greater dropout rate: earning to give, or direct charity work. If I had to bet I'd say it was direct charity work.

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