None of this tomfoolery would matter if it weren’t for the tech billionaires.
This is going to be the subheading in future history books talking about the XXI century.
I enjoyed the takedowns (wow, this guy really hates Macaskill), but the overall conclusions of the article seem a bit lost. If malaria nets are like a medicine with side-effects, then the solution is not to throw away the medicine. (Giving away free nets to people probably does not have a signficant death toll!). At the end they seem to suggest, like, voluntourism as the preferred alternative? I don’t think Africa needs to be flooded with dorky software engineers personally going to villages to “help out”.
Where did you get that impression from? He says himself he is not advocating against aid per se, but that its effects should be judged more holistically, e.g. that organizations like GiveWell should also include the potential harms alongside benefits in their reports. The overarching message seems to be one of intellectual humility – to not lose sight that the ultimate aim is to help another human being who in the end is a person with agency just like you, not to feel good about yourself or to alleviate your own feelings of guilt.
The basic conceit of projects like EA is the incredible high of self-importance and moral superiority one can get blinded by when one views themselves as more important than other people by virtue of helping so many of them. No one likes to be condescended to; sure, a life saved with whatever technical fix is better than a life lost, but human life is about so much more than bare material existence – dignity and freedom are crucial to a good life. The ultimate aim should be to shift agency and power into the hands of the powerless, not to bask in being the white knight trotting around the globe, saving the benighted from themselves.
To be honest, I’m just kinda annoyed that he ended on the story about his mate Aaron who went on surfing trips to indonesia and gave money to his new poor village friends. The author says aaron is “accountable” to the village, but that’s not true, because Aaron is a comparatively rich first world academic that can go home at any time. Is Aaron “shifting power” to the village? No, because they if they don’t treat him well, he’ll stop coming to the village and stop funding their water supply upgrades. And he personally benefits with praise and friendship from his purchases.
I’m sure Aaron is a fine guy, and I’m not saying he shouldn’t give money to his village mates, but this is not a good model for philanthropy! I would argue that a software developer who just donates a bunch of money unconditionally to the village (via givedirectly or something) is arguably more noble than Aaron here, donating without any personal benefit or feel good surfer energy.
I feel like this is one of those “no ethical consumption” things past a certain point. Directly interacting with the people you’re helping and increasing their available financial resources directly does give them more opportunities to work with you and express/meet their own needs, as opposed to the EA model where it’s the rich foreigners who know what you need and will give it to you regardless of what you think. That doesn’t change the fact that by actively traveling there he’s consuming resources and taking resources from that community at the same time, and it’s easy to do more harm than good in that sense, but I think the basic idea of “if you want to help, give money at the lowest possible level” is pretty defensible.
Philanthropy can’t change the power structures, philanthropy is a band aid that soothe the conscience of the philanthropist.
Aaron and assorted developers can’t give the villagers power, because they only have power in relation to the villagers, not in relation to the world trade system. If they want to give the villagers power they need to change the system that gives the villagers a fraction of their earnings per hour.
But then you are back to the usual options. Thirty years of boredom, trying to change the system from within? Protest world leaders and get beaten by police for your troubles (or even sentenced for destruction of police equipment by smashing your face into it)? Join a communist party and play spot the fed?
I guess it’s better to join a philanthropy cult, where billionaires can pay you to hang out in a castle and discuss the problems with the poor over some overpriced ethanol.
Wasn’t GiveDirectly one of EA’s big things and precisely what you’re describing here? Unconditional cash transfers
I once saw what I think was a BBC show where an Englishman visited cool tribes and lived with them. Tough, outdoorsman.
The only episode I saw he was in Mongolia and it had what I think was unintentional humour. The local vet - who had been the local party representative during the Communist era and now held some other title - placed him in a family that could need a hand during migration, as their teenage daughter had a disability. So on he went on horseback and he made it there with just a bunch more pauses then the Mongolians would have preferred. But once there, the best his hosts could say about his efforts to help was “Well, he is strong. And he is trying.”
By the looks of it, the Mongolians could not believe how a big, strong guy could be so utterly useless.
I once saw a show where a tribesman had his penis stretched out and was rolling it up on a stick
And did it appear he needed any help from dorky software engineers personally going to villages to “help out”?
you may laugh but software engineers are people with problem solving skills. I bet they could have shown up and within a minute said “what if we made this stick part of the internet of things”
This is why I’ll never succeed in software engineering. My first thought was to make the penis part of the internet of things.
Paging Dr qdot, Dr qdot to the consulting room please
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Will GiveWell empower any poor people that it might have harmed to file a grievance?
I laughed at loud at the idea of the top rated charity on GiveWell being a common fund for a class-action against GiveWell to stop them from harming even more people.
When you feed the world to a technocapitalist machine that produces misery and CO2, the price tag of a good night of sleep rises to donating some of that sweet, sweet value to save a few people from getting malaria.
This is just indulgences for the XXI century. Rich tech idiot’s equivalent of Paulie from the Sopranos donating tons of money to his local church to not end up in hell for his many sins.
All I really have to add is that “MENSA with orgies” is both the kindest and meanest summation of the rationalist community I’ve ever heard.
This is a long but great read that gets to the very human follies behind the hyper-rational exterior of EA. Highly recommended!
archive https://archive.is/GzUCb
