I find your African aid example jarring, and my back of the envelope calculations suggest it is backwards.
Many aid organisations exist that focus their spending on funding education directly, or improving educational infrastructure. Educated children are more likely to escape peasant-hood, and more likely to ensure that their own children are educated. It seems probable to me that the potential net rationality (measured in rations or some such unit) produced from small donations is positive. Assuming we want to maximize humanity’s mean rationality score, this may be an example of comparative advantage at work.
The net value of an extra $50 in my pocket on friday is negative, it will probably be spent on beer, takeaway, maybe a new game I can waste time playing. I already spent all day reading papers and writing code, the chance of me spending that $50 to level up my rationality again is negligible compared to the chance of my $50 hangover cutting into my Saturday morning research time. The net value (in rations) of posting that $50 to Plan or some such organisation to spend it providing primary school education to girls who have a non-zero probability of going on to become biotech researchers is positive.
I’d even be inclined to suggest that the value of a potential small-r rationalist in an intellecutally backward country is higher than a small time fraction of a rationalist in an educated society. You get to decide which of Africa or the States is intellectually more backward...
That’s a good reply. But most people didn’t make it in the thread on African aid. They just waltzed right into the “a life is a life is a life” assumption without even pointing it out.
An attempt to seriously address the dilemma of African aid is much more than I can do in a blog post. My own reasoning on the matter has not hit bottom yet. Please don’t interpret my post as being against aid to Africa, or as being my final rejection to aid from Africa.
I find your African aid example jarring, and my back of the envelope calculations suggest it is backwards.
Many aid organisations exist that focus their spending on funding education directly, or improving educational infrastructure. Educated children are more likely to escape peasant-hood, and more likely to ensure that their own children are educated. It seems probable to me that the potential net rationality (measured in rations or some such unit) produced from small donations is positive. Assuming we want to maximize humanity’s mean rationality score, this may be an example of comparative advantage at work.
The net value of an extra $50 in my pocket on friday is negative, it will probably be spent on beer, takeaway, maybe a new game I can waste time playing. I already spent all day reading papers and writing code, the chance of me spending that $50 to level up my rationality again is negligible compared to the chance of my $50 hangover cutting into my Saturday morning research time. The net value (in rations) of posting that $50 to Plan or some such organisation to spend it providing primary school education to girls who have a non-zero probability of going on to become biotech researchers is positive.
I’d even be inclined to suggest that the value of a potential small-r rationalist in an intellecutally backward country is higher than a small time fraction of a rationalist in an educated society. You get to decide which of Africa or the States is intellectually more backward...
ac
That’s a good reply. But most people didn’t make it in the thread on African aid. They just waltzed right into the “a life is a life is a life” assumption without even pointing it out.
An attempt to seriously address the dilemma of African aid is much more than I can do in a blog post. My own reasoning on the matter has not hit bottom yet. Please don’t interpret my post as being against aid to Africa, or as being my final rejection to aid from Africa.