{"items": [{"author": "Alex", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/100936518160252317727", "anchor": "gp-1375237516298", "service": "gp", "text": "You have a curious definition of the word \"fair\". I feel like most folks would argue that \"fair\" means helping everyone equally, even if some people need more help than others, or if some people are much more expensive to help than others. I'd argue your approach is \"highly optimized\", or perhaps \"maximally impactful\" -- all good things to be sure! -- but I don't think fairness is really a metric you use. If you found a charity that saved, say, fifty people from death, and another charity that gave a thousand folks breakfast for the same price, I think you'd probably choose the former one even though the latter one helps more people. The way you've framed it -- helping one person versus helping a thousand -- is sort of a strawman of the alternatives.", "timestamp": 1375237516}, {"author": "Marcus", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/115811589251174483775", "anchor": "gp-1375370709429", "service": "gp", "text": "Jeff,\n
\nAre you saying is that it's immoral (or \"not fair\") to help your neighbors, even if their need is dire, if you live in a developed country, or am I misunderstanding your argument?", "timestamp": 1375370709}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1375404022811", "service": "gp", "text": "@Marcus\n\u00a0I'm saying it's unfair to help people just because they're lucky enough to be your neighbors. \u00a0(Of course, if you're helping them because that's where your help goes farthest, then that's fine.)", "timestamp": 1375404022}, {"author": "Marcus", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/115811589251174483775", "anchor": "gp-1375451025321", "service": "gp", "text": "Personally I believe there's a greater obligation to help people within your own community.*\u00a0 I realize this might perpetuate global inequality, but I don't really see charity as the solution to that anyway, but rather political and economic reforms.\n
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\n* This obligation doesn't override all other considerations, but is a factor in my moral framework.", "timestamp": 1375451025}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/117346402173047680184", "anchor": "gp-1375714038079", "service": "gp", "text": "@Marcus\n Can you explain why there's a greater obligation to help people within your own community?", "timestamp": 1375714038}, {"author": "Marcus", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/115811589251174483775", "anchor": "gp-1375728884368", "service": "gp", "text": "Sure.\n
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\nFirst of all, I want to make it clear that this is a personal belief; I don't expect everyone to agree and actually consider diverse views on charity a positive good, since it means people and organizations will get help that would otherwise be neglected if views were uniform.\n
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\nOne argument is from traditional guidance. The Torah instructs not to harvest the corners of your field, nor pick the gleanings. The prophets extol not to neglect the widowed and orphaned. Many folk tales feature beggars as a test of morality. All of these, and others, imply local charity. One could counter that until recently the cost of travel and communication made remote charity inefficient and such guidance should therefore be ignored. (Or that you find such sources unauthoritative or unhelpful.)\n
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\nMore to the point, it seems heartless to me to ignore suffering that is right before you, even more so if you live in opulence. Studies have shown that income inequality, much more so than poverty, is a greater driver of unhappiness. Ultimately though, it's a moral intuition and not everyone will have the same sense.\n
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\nLastly, interfering in other societies and cultures can have unanticipated consequences, even if your intent is good. Famine relief can cause prices to fall to the point where farmers do not seed crops for the next growing season, extending the famine.\u00a0 The creation of a modern welfare state in Greenland increased the suicide rate from near zero to one of the highest in the world.\u00a0 More broadly, most people prefer to retain control over their own destinies. Having thousands of NGOs pour into countries to \"fix\" them reeks of imperialism. When we rebuilt Europe after WWII, we gave countries grants to spend as they saw best.\u00a0 We helped turn East Asia into an economic powerhouse through preferential trade agreements.\u00a0 There's no cold war enemy driving similar policies today, but overall that seems a better route than charity to create prosperity in developing countries.", "timestamp": 1375728884}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1375735137066", "service": "gp", "text": "@Marcus\n\u00a0\"consider diverse views on charity a positive good, since it means people and organizations will get help that would otherwise be neglected if views were uniform\"\n
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\nI think if you do the math behind that claim you'll see that greater diversity in approaches to charity results in an outcome you're less happy with than one where everyone follows the approach you'd recommend.\n
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\n\"One could counter that until recently the cost of travel and communication made remote charity inefficient and such guidance should therefore be ignored.\"\n
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\nThis is a strong counterargument, and basically my reasoning.\n
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\n\"it seems heartless to me to ignore suffering that is right before you\"\n
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\nSo we should help the person in the room with you who has a bad cut on their arm while knowing that behind the door there is a person who is bleeding to death and needs a tourniquet?\n
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\n\"Studies have shown that income inequality, much more so than poverty, is a greater driver of unhappiness\"\n
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\nIs this mostly coming from the Spirit Level or somewhere else? \u00a0If the former, you might find\u00a0\nhttp://squid314.livejournal.com/320672.html\n interesting. \u00a0The main idea is that the Spirit Level does show that a lot of positive and negative aspects of society are correlated (scandinavia consistently does well, US consistently does poorly) but doesn't show that income inequality is the reason. \u00a0If you're getting this idea from elsewhere I'd be interested to read more.\n
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\n\"interfering in other societies and cultures can have unanticipated consequences, even if your intent is good\"\n
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\nAgreed. \u00a0There are probably more ways to do charity wrong than right. \u00a0But we can be careful and do things that we know are actually strongly helpful. \u00a0For example, see givewell's research:\u00a0\nhttp://www.givewell.org/", "timestamp": 1375735137}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1375735628635", "service": "gp", "text": "Note that \"everyone follows the approach you'd recommend\" could include such possibilities as \"help the people nearest you\", \"try to be a total utilitarian\", \"be the best catholic you can\", or \"pick a philosophy at random and follow it as well as you can\" or any combination.", "timestamp": 1375735628}, {"author": "Marcus", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/115811589251174483775", "anchor": "gp-1375738341079", "service": "gp", "text": "I've never heard of \"Spirit Level\". This is what I was referring to: \nhttp://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/9/1095\n
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\nProximity doesn't mean in physical sight, (though Mencius implies that keeping suffering, of animals at least, out of view is morally correct*).\u00a0 Rather what I meant is that you have an obligation to care for the unfortunate in your community. It's a somewhat arbitrary distinction, which I think is the point you're trying to make, since the bounds of a community is not well defined.\n
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\nI realize that I will not find other people's decisions optimal. Some of their work I may find counterproductive, even downright malicious. In aggregate though, I think everyone making their own choices has a positive effect. People are motivated by different things. Someone who lost a close friend to a disease may contribute to research towards its cure. Someone who is a great lover of the arts may contribute to a museum. Neither of these are optimal in terms of maximizing global happiness, but both are things that require significant private donations, at least in our society. We could, of course, choose through our government to fund medical research and the arts at higher levels, but we could also choose to fund global poverty relief at high levels, or any number of things that one might deem beneficial. Ultimately charity is up to the individual, rather than collectively decided, hence my view.\n
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\n* - \nhttp://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius03.html\n (Sections 4-8)", "timestamp": 1375738341}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1375744610107", "service": "gp", "text": "@Marcus\n\u00a0I just read your \"Income Inequality and Happiness\" link, and while I have several issues with it the main one is that it doesn't back up your claim that \"income inequality, much more so than poverty, is a greater driver of unhappiness\".", "timestamp": 1375744610}, {"author": "Brad", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/116032343632043704302", "anchor": "gp-1376316698633", "service": "gp", "text": "\"It's not fair to do something I find personally meaningful when that's not what most needs doing.\"\u00a0\n
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\nI totally agree with this, and yet it's worth acknowledging that there's a disconnect between the \"most effective\" charities identified by GiveWell and \"what most needs doing\" to help the poorest 1 billion people in the world who live on less than $1.25/day. For example, according to the UN's World Food Programme, malnutrition kills 3.1 million children under the age of five every year. In comparison, malaria kills about 600,000 people per year (children and adults). Malnutrition actually kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. If you step back from death and consider only suffering, there are 870 million on the planet who don't get enough to eat, compared with 219 million cases per year of malaria.\n
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\nBased on this, one could say that \"what most needs doing\" is getting food and safe drinking water to people in developing countries. Yet you won't find any nutrition- or water-focused charities on GiveWell's list, because GiveWell hasn't found any whose effectiveness can be evaluated.\n
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\nWhat worries me is that we may be fooling ourselves into believing we are doing \"the most good\" by choosing to donate only to highly effective charities, when in fact we are only ensuring that our donations save the maximum number of lives per dollar. I don't think that necessarily equates to doing the most good, and it certainly does not de facto equate to doing \"what most needs doing.\"\n
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\nI understand of course that donating to charities whose effectiveness hasn't been verified represents a risk and dilutes our personal impact. Donations to charities working on big systemic issues like nutrition and access to safe water have a much lower incremental impact than those to more narrowly focused charities like the Against Malaria Foundation. But does that mean we shouldn't support any charities that are working to address the most pressing needs of poor people in developing countries, simply because they haven't yet been able to meet GiveWell's standards for effectiveness?\n
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\nSure, plenty of people already support those charities, but even if the incremental impact of another dollar or another $100,000 to one of those charities is tiny, malnutrition and access to safe drinking water are big problems that require lots of money and time to address. I think the question to ponder is whether it's worth taking a risk and sacrificing a small portion of our personal effectiveness as donors in order to contribute some money to efforts that address \"what most needs doing\" in developing countries.", "timestamp": 1376316698}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1376318732301", "service": "gp", "text": "@Brad\n\u00a0The reason I want to give to organizations that can be evaluated isn't that I'm not ok with risk. \u00a0I am ok with risk, and I think being too conservative in charity is a big danger. \u00a0The reason I want evaluation is that there are many more ways to be wrong than to be right, and when people are working without good feedback they're not generally able to find the right ways. \u00a0In the for-profit marketplace if someone is making a widget that doesn't work other people won't buy it, but you can go for decades doing something in charity that is ineffectual or even harmful. \u00a0If a charity can tell whether what they're doing is working then external evaluation should be able to see that too.", "timestamp": 1376318732}]}