On the other hand, if you want to strictly adhere to utilitarian principles, you would probably have to note that the “altruistic dollars” obtained through selection of the better candidate probably produce much less utility per dollar than a dollar donated to one of givewell.org’s top rated charities. Standards of living in the US are already so high that a marginal dollar is worth much less than a marginal dollar in a less developed country. Then again, if you really followed this philosophy and lived in the US, you should probably actually devoting essentially all of your time to earning money to donate to such charities, which is not something that many people are actually willing to do.
US policy and wars have a large effect on people in poor countries. They are presumably considered in the $100 billion “better for the world” sum.
Unless they would be earning fabulous sums in that hour, an altruist would probably be justified in considering the expected value of their vote higher than the expected value of whatever else they would do with that one hour per year.
On the other hand, it seems to me like the differences between the foreign policies of the two candidates don’t seem nearly as significant as the differences in their domestic policies. Furthermore, problems like malaria would be best dealt with through foreign aid budgets, which really aren’t that big to begin with. In any case, I think my point stands that the value of an “altruistic dollar” in this context is significantly less than the value of an actual dollar donated to an optimal charity.
I agree with you, and while I agree that the values of “charity” versus “well-directed US spending” are at least one order of magnitude different, but I’m not convinced that they are more than three orders of magnitude different and most people do not even make $56/hour with total time fungibility.
On the other hand, if you want to strictly adhere to utilitarian principles, you would probably have to note that the “altruistic dollars” obtained through selection of the better candidate probably produce much less utility per dollar than a dollar donated to one of givewell.org’s top rated charities. Standards of living in the US are already so high that a marginal dollar is worth much less than a marginal dollar in a less developed country. Then again, if you really followed this philosophy and lived in the US, you should probably actually devoting essentially all of your time to earning money to donate to such charities, which is not something that many people are actually willing to do.
US policy and wars have a large effect on people in poor countries. They are presumably considered in the $100 billion “better for the world” sum.
Unless they would be earning fabulous sums in that hour, an altruist would probably be justified in considering the expected value of their vote higher than the expected value of whatever else they would do with that one hour per year.
On the other hand, it seems to me like the differences between the foreign policies of the two candidates don’t seem nearly as significant as the differences in their domestic policies. Furthermore, problems like malaria would be best dealt with through foreign aid budgets, which really aren’t that big to begin with. In any case, I think my point stands that the value of an “altruistic dollar” in this context is significantly less than the value of an actual dollar donated to an optimal charity.
I agree with you, and while I agree that the values of “charity” versus “well-directed US spending” are at least one order of magnitude different, but I’m not convinced that they are more than three orders of magnitude different and most people do not even make $56/hour with total time fungibility.