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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?

#141

Post by tptacek »

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.

Yeah, but Alinea is overrated. Check back with us after Schwa.

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

#142

Post by jl6 »

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…

Could death have evolved by natural selection as a method of favouring the new generation's adaptations over the old? Is a society collectively fitter when there is less resource competition between old and new generations, and new mutations have a better chance at a fair trial - a way of jumping out of local maxima?

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

#143

Post by alphapapa »

schoen wrote: post #134
alphapapa wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

But people are working to reduce the population by reducing fertility rates. I haven't met anyone who was openly working to reduce the population by increasing mortality rates or even by campaigning against efforts to decrease mortality rates. It's possible that if mortality rates were reduced really dramatically, some population activists would get upset (and I've seen indications of that in other threads here).

People who advocate euthanasia and socialist health care programs are effectively increasing mortality rates. In countries where euthanasia is legalized, mentally ill people are already being killed.

When a bureaucrat sitting behind a desk can use a rubber-stamp to tell an elderly person, "Nope, no treatment for you this time, you're done," there's nothing to stop more and more people from being denied treatment. Eventually even younger people with mental illnesses or genetic disorders will be eliminated--all to avoid overcrowding and overloading of the health care system, of course.

It's for the greater good. Don't you want to be a good citizen? Reduce your burden on society, today!*

*Cremation fees not included.

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

#144

Post by alphapapa »

Retra wrote: post #136
alphapapa wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, it doesn't depend on what you believe, it depends on what is actually true. There is no rational justification for believing things that are not true, so there's no way to effectively argue for them.

In your knee-jerkiness you have missed the point. The point is that people who believe in life after death may not desire to live longer. Regardless of whether there actually is life after death, what people believe about it affects their decisions.

This is probably not the place to argue about the existence of God, but I will say this: your reasoning is circular. "There's no rational justification for it, so it's not true; and since it's not true, there's no rational justification for it." You have made up your mind already, so you don't even realize when you beg the question. In fact, many people do see rational arguments in favor; just because you disagree with them doesn't make them irrational. And your stated arguments are, in fact, irrational.

Food for thought.

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

#145

Post by willmacaskill »

Frompo wrote: post #124
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…

Re: bizarro candidate? Yes, certainly. (as long as they're actually going to be much better for the world and your donation will make a difference). Lower probability of larger upside can easily beat guarantee of doing more modest amount of good.

There's a lot of talk about 'impact investing' and I see potential there, but at the moment the 'impact' side of things is generally very poorly understood so it's not fulfilling its potential in my view.

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

#146

Post by [deleted] »

backlava wrote: post #101
mattmanser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your rhetorical style here is off-putting. I don't think he's committed any logical fallacy. It's perfectly possible to do charitable work selfishly. For example, if you were offered a choice between saving two lives or, for the same money, saving only one life but getting a nice packet documenting the one life saved, it's selfish to choose the latter for the purpose of making yourself feel better. Even though you're…

[deleted]

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

#147

Post by mattmanser »

backlava wrote: post #101
mattmanser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your rhetorical style here is off-putting. I don't think he's committed any logical fallacy. It's perfectly possible to do charitable work selfishly. For example, if you were offered a choice between saving two lives or, for the same money, saving only one life but getting a nice packet documenting the one life saved, it's selfish to choose the latter for the purpose of making yourself feel better. Even though you're…

Actually you're wrong, using a variant of a false dilemma, both options are selfless, you're also annoyingly redefining the word selfish. Yes my last reply was a bit harsh, but the previous guy's a bit of an idiot in trying to claim I was 'not convinced' rather than admit his obvious mistake.

The key to your intellectual fallacy is that you've presented it as a 'choice', while missing out option 3, which is do nothing, or option 4, which is exploit the situation and ask to be paid for saving the life, or option 5 which is to expediate the deaths.

Suddenly both option 1 & 2 look good.

Both you and the op are suggesting we live in a world where perfection is the only possible way you can be selfless. The real world is a spectrum of white to black. In the real world it's impossible to be perfect and pretty good outcomes are still morally acceptable.

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

#148

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mattmanser wrote: post #147
backlava wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your rhetorical style here is off-putting. I don't think he's committed any logical fallacy. It's perfectly possible to do charitable work selfishly. For example, if you were offered a choice between saving two lives or, for the same money, saving only one life but getting a nice packet documenting the one life saved, it's selfish to choose the latter for the purpose of making yourself feel better. Even though you're…

Actually you're wrong, using a variant of a false dilemma, both options are selfless, you're also annoyingly redefining the word selfish. Yes my last reply was a bit harsh, but the previous guy's a bit of an idiot in trying to claim I was 'not convinced' rather than admit his obvious mistake. The key to your intellectual fallacy is that you've presented it as a 'choice', while missing out option 3, which is do nothin…

That binary outlook is convenient for you, but not the whole story. Something can be more selfish when compared with something else. It isn't a switch. I understand ignoring that makes for righteous indignation which feels good, so go right ahead.

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

#149

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Retra wrote: post #62
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, the point is clear. This was a terrible waste of a Stanford education. Hundreds of thousands in public, private and family funds and now she's in a low-paying feel-good job that anybody could do.

That's not a waste of education. There's no such thing as a waste of education. Maybe her experiences at Stanford reinforced her desire to do this, or strengthened her ability to make sacrifices. There's more to education than making money. For one, if she didn't have that education, you wouldn't be talking about her.

Oh there most certainly is such a thing. Dining at a host home in the Phillippines while on a medical mission, we were introduced to the daughter of the family, as 'Dr'. Oh, what do you practice? Oh I don't practice says the daughter, as if it would be beneath her.

Now, there are precious few slots in that country for medical education. Such that exist are supported by the nation and the people directly and indirectly through taxes. One of those slots was 'wasted' on this human being, who's degree was an ornament on her wall. In a country where medical treatment is a privilege of the wealthy (thus the medical mission).

So pardon me if I regard education as a sacred trust, to be exercised to the best of your ability. Anything less is, at best, an affordable affectation. At worst, a moral failing and a crime against society.

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

#150

Post by merpnderp »

philipn wrote: post #55
merpnderp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is turning boreal peat forests into palm oil plantations equal to capital extraction? Isn't it the exact opposite in that land of less value has been turned into land of more value? I think I'm missing something here.

Sorry, I meant to say peat swamps, not boreal forests. Regarding peat swamps, they are less valuable in that the land isn't being farmed. Transformation of "unvaluable and useless" peat swamps to productive oil palm plantations often, but not always, involves altering the water table of the forest, which causes a massive increase in CO2 (peat is an incredible carbon sink) as well as widespread fires. http://www.scien…

Seems like the easiest solution is to make the land valuable in its current form. In the US there's a federal program to control the amount of wheat produced by paying farmers to let their wheat fields lie fallow. I assume though that a palm oil plantation is quite a bit more valuable than a wheat field.....
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