If you taught the principles of effective altruism to a rich person in (say) 1400, what would they have thought was the most effective thing to do with their money? What was in fact the most effective thing they could have done?
what would they have thought was the most effective thing to do with their money?
One of the comments from MR is:
Probably hire a bunch of mercenaries and engage in forced conversion to Christianity. For the pacifists, perhaps funding missionaries might have seemed more acceptable. What better investment can there be for an effective altruist than eternal salvation of lost souls who will otherwise face an eternity of damnation?
which basically does sound about right, given the values of the time.
These are two questions which suggest very different answers:) especially in hindsight:) without specifying where the person lives, my only guess is for the second question—exterminate rats; but it might have been simply impossible to arrive at in 1400, so—lessen taxes?
The impact of tax policy in Malthusian eras is hard to determine—it might adjust the population size, but probably not per capita income. But it does seem like one could convince someone that urbanization is important, and they should focus on solving the city-level problems of sanitation, trade, and economics, which were approached only haphazardly at the time. Convincing them to move to an Imperial Free City and spend their efforts sanitizing it / developing institutions that keep it clean might be useful.
It seems like the Givewell branch of EA is the application of recent improvements in scientific management / finance to charity, about ~10 years after they appeared in the private sector, similar to CharityNavigator before it. If you can count those as “principles,” then they might be a huge leg up for someone like the Fuggers. (Remember, double-entry bookkeeping in Europe seems to have started about 1340, and the first textbook on it was published in 1494.)
But if the chronophone would transmit that as just “apply recent advances in business to all your endeavors,” that’s not very useful, and maybe even not that—trade and business is the dominant force in the society that Givewell lives in. What would the dominant force in the 1400s be? Innovation is respected in the society that Givewell lives in. Would it be respected in the 1400s?
The chronophone is a weird device with weird limitations suited to the purposes of EY in that post.
This is a much more straightforward question (but note the context—it asks where should that person put his money, not what kind of tech he should invent).
In particular, there is an interesting implication/sub-question: what was the cheapest way of saving the most lives in 1400 and do you think that was the best use of resources?
it asks where should that person put his money, not what kind of tech he should invent
A nontrivial chunk of EA is allocating money to tech invention, though, especially if you consider institutions and institutional design to be social tech.
Open borders advocacy, for example, would probably translate to infrastructure investments in the 1400s. (Build more lighthouses, map out channels, build and guard more roads, set up mail links, etc.)
But yeah, GiveDirectly would have an obvious analog in 1400. And SCI, if you were able to somehow transmit the ‘pathogens and parasites cause disease and can be fixed by sanitation’ idea along with it, seems like it could be tremendously useful. Inoculation, for example, could be moved up a century globally (and ~4 centuries in Europe).
You’re still trying to answer the question of “what is the most useful knowledge I can pass down to 1400”. That’s a different question.
Here all you can do is say “You should put your money in X” and no, you can’t explain why X is important. “Build more lighthouses” is a valid answer, yes, but doesn’t that imply that EA should be concerned with the success of commerce?
Here all you can do is say “You should put your money in X” and no, you can’t explain why X is important.
That’s not the prompt—the prompt is:
If you taught the principles of effective altruism to a rich person in (say) 1400, what would they have thought was the most effective thing to do with their money?
But what are the “principles of effective altruism”? If they’re something like “use science to determine which charitable opportunities best achieve your values,” then we can’t teach them to a rich person in 1400 without teaching them what we mean by “science.” If it’s something like “rank charitable opportunities by marginal value,” then it has to include a definition of marginal value.
If it’s just “don’t privilege your local area, don’t give for affiliation reasons, look for where your gifts can do the most good,” then yeah, you’re probably just going to see them funding missionaries when they should be investing in capitalism and science and infrastructure.
doesn’t that imply that EA should be concerned with the success of commerce?
What do you think GiveDirectly and/or open borders EAs do?
Yes, fair point. But you don’t need to teach someone science to convey the message of EA. The message is basically “Apply your money to where it will do the most good, as best as you can determine”. You can add a few negatives (“don’t give to raise your status”, “don’t give to what tugs at your heart the hardest”, etc.) and they will still be easily understood by a XV-century person.
What do you think GiveDirectly and/or open borders EAs do?
I think they concern themselves with welfare of people and not with success of commerce.
Effective Altruism in 1400 AD
One of the comments from MR is:
which basically does sound about right, given the values of the time.
These are two questions which suggest very different answers:) especially in hindsight:) without specifying where the person lives, my only guess is for the second question—exterminate rats; but it might have been simply impossible to arrive at in 1400, so—lessen taxes?
The impact of tax policy in Malthusian eras is hard to determine—it might adjust the population size, but probably not per capita income. But it does seem like one could convince someone that urbanization is important, and they should focus on solving the city-level problems of sanitation, trade, and economics, which were approached only haphazardly at the time. Convincing them to move to an Imperial Free City and spend their efforts sanitizing it / developing institutions that keep it clean might be useful.
That’s part of the point.
Is that possible with XV-century technology and level of social organization?
I think so (based on fictional evidence of a Kipling’s story). For example, the church could damn rats, it would make people united in their efforts.
If we’re going for fictional evidence, it’s easier to train an army of Pied Pipers :-)
See also the chronophone (and its followup).
It seems like the Givewell branch of EA is the application of recent improvements in scientific management / finance to charity, about ~10 years after they appeared in the private sector, similar to CharityNavigator before it. If you can count those as “principles,” then they might be a huge leg up for someone like the Fuggers. (Remember, double-entry bookkeeping in Europe seems to have started about 1340, and the first textbook on it was published in 1494.)
But if the chronophone would transmit that as just “apply recent advances in business to all your endeavors,” that’s not very useful, and maybe even not that—trade and business is the dominant force in the society that Givewell lives in. What would the dominant force in the 1400s be? Innovation is respected in the society that Givewell lives in. Would it be respected in the 1400s?
The chronophone is a weird device with weird limitations suited to the purposes of EY in that post.
This is a much more straightforward question (but note the context—it asks where should that person put his money, not what kind of tech he should invent).
In particular, there is an interesting implication/sub-question: what was the cheapest way of saving the most lives in 1400 and do you think that was the best use of resources?
A nontrivial chunk of EA is allocating money to tech invention, though, especially if you consider institutions and institutional design to be social tech.
Open borders advocacy, for example, would probably translate to infrastructure investments in the 1400s. (Build more lighthouses, map out channels, build and guard more roads, set up mail links, etc.)
But yeah, GiveDirectly would have an obvious analog in 1400. And SCI, if you were able to somehow transmit the ‘pathogens and parasites cause disease and can be fixed by sanitation’ idea along with it, seems like it could be tremendously useful. Inoculation, for example, could be moved up a century globally (and ~4 centuries in Europe).
You’re still trying to answer the question of “what is the most useful knowledge I can pass down to 1400”. That’s a different question.
Here all you can do is say “You should put your money in X” and no, you can’t explain why X is important. “Build more lighthouses” is a valid answer, yes, but doesn’t that imply that EA should be concerned with the success of commerce?
That’s not the prompt—the prompt is:
But what are the “principles of effective altruism”? If they’re something like “use science to determine which charitable opportunities best achieve your values,” then we can’t teach them to a rich person in 1400 without teaching them what we mean by “science.” If it’s something like “rank charitable opportunities by marginal value,” then it has to include a definition of marginal value.
If it’s just “don’t privilege your local area, don’t give for affiliation reasons, look for where your gifts can do the most good,” then yeah, you’re probably just going to see them funding missionaries when they should be investing in capitalism and science and infrastructure.
What do you think GiveDirectly and/or open borders EAs do?
Yes, fair point. But you don’t need to teach someone science to convey the message of EA. The message is basically “Apply your money to where it will do the most good, as best as you can determine”. You can add a few negatives (“don’t give to raise your status”, “don’t give to what tugs at your heart the hardest”, etc.) and they will still be easily understood by a XV-century person.
I think they concern themselves with welfare of people and not with success of commerce.