The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world? • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by willmacaskill » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

willmacaskill wrote: post #115

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! :)

Some general comments I have on the article (which I thought in general was very good):

- At 80,000 Hours (the social impact career advice service I cofounded) we don't advise that many people to aim to earn to give in the long-term; less than a third of the people who have changed their plans on the basis of our advice have done so in the past, and the proportion will be less in the long-term.

- Most commonly, the people who do this are those who really wanted to work in lucrative career X anyway, but were thinking of doing something else. E.g. Matt Gibb really wanted to do startups, but thought he should instead do something 'more ethical'; our advice made him realise he could do both. He's pledging 30% of his equity at LendLayer. (interview here: https://80000hours.org/2014/02/interview-with-matt-gibb/)

- Another common strategy (which we do recommend) is to gain skills in a for-profit company before then moving to something with greater direct impact afterwards. While you're working for that for-profit, you may as well be donating a lot too!

- if you think this is cool and are an entrepreneur, you might want to take the Founders Pledge (http://thefounderspledge.org/about/)

- if you think this is cool and can't or don't want to take the Founders Pledge, you might want to take the Giving What We Can pledge (disclaimer: i cofounded GWWC) https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/become-member

- If you think this is cool and aren't sure what you should do with your life, then we can advise you at 80,000 Hours (https://80000hours.org/). We're currently in Mountain View for the summer.

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

#122

Post by dTal » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

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…

>there would enourmous savings in health care costs (both maintenance and research) and a positive impact on the economy as a result of more healthy people being available for work

That seems rather dubious. It would be wonderful if society were organised to maximally channel the efforts of all the warm bodies available, but (bizarrely in my view) "not enough jobs to go around" is seemingly a thing. Also, "more people alive" certainly does not equal "cheaper healthcare" no matter how you slice it.

That aside, it seems to me that a more immediately realizable method of achieving that goal would be to redistribute wealth to the enormous fraction of the world that cannot afford even basic medical care - even in the United States.

It seems highly likely to me that even if it were possible to extend human lifespan by some substantial degree with no ill effects, this technology would probably not be used on everybody in the world, or on every social class. This would come with grave destabilising effects. You'd struggle to find a better way to foment resentment and revolution than today's super-powerful and mega-rich becoming immortal as well.

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

#123

Post by alphapapa » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

reasonattlm wrote: post #118

alphapapa wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That sounds nice, but there are a few problems with it. 1) You can't predict the future, so you don't know that those treatments will work or will actually be inexpensive. 2) Patents, greed, lawyers, etc. 3) Since the treatments don't exist yet, you don't know how often they would need to be done.

Bottom line is that you seem to be awfully confident about predicting the future of things that don't exist yet.

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

#124

Post by Frompo » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 3:37 PM UTC

willmacaskill wrote: post #115

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! :)

Some of the charities mentioned are clearly advocating for policy change (lifting copyright and restructured tax schemes), and I think that generally all charities must decide how to relate to the current structure of the world because whatever the ill you are campaigning against preventive measure are most effective at preventing suffering. So one question is if you see any natural limit for when something goes from a charity to a political campaign and vice versa. For instance, imagine the bizarre scenario where a presidential candidate pledges a significant increase to foreign humanitarian aid by taking from the foreign military aid budget. Will make that candidacy a worthwhile charity (supposing the bizarro candidate has reasonable probability of winning)?

An unrelated question is: why do you think there are so few investment opportunities that are truly concerned with being ethical? The GiveWell founders seems like they could have made an investment fund dedicated to growing local companies in the poorer parts of the world. Direct cash transfers are among the best ways of helping the poor, but stable financing with modest return expectations seems like it could be pretty good too, with the benefit of slightly growing the capital available to help. Or you could imagine getting a significant amount of shares in Shell and turn up at shareholders meetings and make them repair their pipelines properly and such things.

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

#125

Post by ceras » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 3:59 PM UTC

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…

I agree that there are more and less efficient ways to do good, but not everyone can make it finance, and nobody should feel bad about not putting in 80-hour weeks in soul-crushing work. Many people would feel miserable in that type of environment.

Here's a good essay by someone that stopped earning to give, on a site that broadly encourages it as a strategy: https://80000hours.org/2015/06/why-i-stopped-earning-to-give...

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

#126

Post by homunculus » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 4:21 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #61

mikekchar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just going to have to guess that you aren't very old. I'm only 47, but I have to tell you that at least for me life just keeps getting better every year. I wouldn't trade this year for another year of my teens. I wouldn't trade this year for 10 more years in my teens. Gradually losing health is unfortunate. I have to watch what I eat and be careful with my lifestyle due to chronic illness. My vision has degraded…

I'm 31, with a toddler. I can't compare anything I do with the joy she gets out of the most mundane things. The first time she tasted chocolate? Blows me going to Alinea out of the water.

I'm not trying to disagree with you, I have a 7 month old son, but what about the joy you felt seeing her being born? I know that isn't a mundane thing and that you likely won't have it but a few more times but there are experiences that children can't have, that are, at least, as transcendent as a child's first taste of chocolate.

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

#127

Post by Symmetry » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 4:26 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #109

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…

> Age-related disease kills ~100,000 people every day People die. In other news water is wet. Now, I'm all for making people live longer, with quality of life > and causes horrible day to day suffering for hundreds of millions of others Because doctors prop up the sick (often with family support) and artificially extend their life while costing a lot of money in 'treatments' for unrecoverable conditions.

If you're looking to keep people alive for long periods of time you necessarily have to work to address frailty because frailty kills. The sort of last ditch treatments to keep someone alive for another year or month you describe aren't really related to SENS's goals except in the broad sense that they're both keeping people alive.

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

#128

Post by homunculus » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 4:35 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #97

JoshTriplett wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I think what he was saying was if he woke up the CEO of a tobacco company and everyone he knew, all of his connections, everyone who worked at his company and, most importantly, the shareholders were on board with his plan... He could then pivot the company into something beneficial.

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

#129

Post by jeffreyrogers » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #127

raverbashing wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Age-related disease kills ~100,000 people every day People die. In other news water is wet. Now, I'm all for making people live longer, with quality of life > and causes horrible day to day suffering for hundreds of millions of others Because doctors prop up the sick (often with family support) and artificially extend their life while costing a lot of money in 'treatments' for unrecoverable conditions.

If you're looking to keep people alive for long periods of time you necessarily have to work to address frailty because frailty kills. The sort of last ditch treatments to keep someone alive for another year or month you describe aren't really related to SENS's goals except in the broad sense that they're both keeping people alive.

I think you misunderstood the person you're replying to. They meant that people's lives should end well (not propped up on life support) and that we should focus more on quality of life than on life extension. There was a great article that went around a few years ago called "How Doctors Die"[1] that showed the difference between medical professionals approach death and how normal people approach it.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/your-money/how-doctors-die...

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

#130

Post by jeffreyrogers » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

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…

I see no reason to believe the second scenario is anywhere close to occurring. The gains we've seen in life expectancy over the past century or so have been due to things like reducing child mortality and better treatments for disease so less people die younger. The maximum life expectancy of a human is about the same now as it was several thousand years ago.