It is so utterly obvious that foreign lives could be saved for less money than a trip to Disney World, that it should be an automatic conclusion that people who donate to Make-A-Wish are deliberately purchasing fuzzies, not attempting to purchase utilons.
I doubt that most people even ask the question whether they want to purchase fuzzies or utilons, so it doesn’t make sense to conclude that they are deliberately choosing one over the other. It also is not clear that people consider and discard the option of donating to life saving charities, rather than just not thinking about the possibility. Getting people to actually deliberately consider these options is valuable.
But for me at least, the case is pretty much closed: when you’re actually trying to be efficient with your money, as measured by utility, you should spend your marginal dollars (or whatever currency) on existential-risk-reduction/long-term-species-improvement.
I agree, but if you are targeting people who not familiar with concepts of optimizing charity and x-risk/transhumanism, there are large inferential distances, and this is a good start in breaking of a manageable piece of it. To get to promoting x-risks, additional prerequisites include problems with time discounting, and expected utility optimizing under large uncertainty.
I understand and agree. I think I would just prefer not to have it framed as “Make-A-Wish is less efficient than VillageReach”. Their goals are different. I do think getting people to consider VillageReach as a source of fuzzies is all well and good.
I doubt that most people even ask the question whether they want to purchase fuzzies or utilons, so it doesn’t make sense to conclude that they are deliberately choosing one over the other. It also is not clear that people consider and discard the option of donating to life saving charities, rather than just not thinking about the possibility. Getting people to actually deliberately consider these options is valuable.
I agree, but if you are targeting people who not familiar with concepts of optimizing charity and x-risk/transhumanism, there are large inferential distances, and this is a good start in breaking of a manageable piece of it. To get to promoting x-risks, additional prerequisites include problems with time discounting, and expected utility optimizing under large uncertainty.
I understand and agree. I think I would just prefer not to have it framed as “Make-A-Wish is less efficient than VillageReach”. Their goals are different. I do think getting people to consider VillageReach as a source of fuzzies is all well and good.