And yeah, I agree with Tim that the line about “your daughter” is blatantly manipulative and I immediately tune out anyone who uses such rhetoric for any goal. I spend my resources on helping people who are important to me. (For real—most of my salary every month goes to friends and relatives.) Don’t trick me into thinking you’re important to me so you can get some of my money.
I’ll just throw these links here for counterpoint:
Do you have any reason to think that the issue of some developing world aid doing more harm than good applies to GiveWell’s top-ranked charities? If you have a good such reason I’d certainly be interested in knowing about it.
Regarding Malthusian problems, see the post to the GiveWell mailing list titled Population growth & health.
And yeah, I agree with Tim that the line about “your daughter” is blatantly manipulative and I immediately tune out anyone who uses such rhetoric for any goal. I spend my resources on helping people who are important to me. (For real—most of my salary every month goes to friends and relatives.) Don’t trick me into thinking you’re important to me so you can get some of my money.
Another answer which may be more to the point of your question: I don’t think that the linked video makes a case for the people who would benefit from developing world aid literally being the viewer’s family/friends. I think that the linked video makes a case for the people who would benefit being somewhat similar to the viewer’s family/friends. It’s certainly not true that the people who would benefit are literally the viewer’s family/friends, but I think that most viewers with enough information would agree that the people who would benefit are somewhat similar to the viewer’s family/friends.
I think that the video helps make this point salient to potential donors for whom it would otherwise not be salient on account of the psychic numbing effect which Paul Slovic talks about.
The typical human with lots of money for luxury spending who lives nearby a family who had a daughter with measles would not care about saving the daughter’s life as much as saving his own daughter’s life. But he would still be willing to donate something to save the daughter’s life. This is because the typical human has sufficiently strong prosocial tendencies to be happy to part with a relatively small amount of excess wealth to help somebody in need.
Now, you may insist that this pro-social tendency is directed at helping people who one knows personally and that to generalize it to those who one doesn’t know is to behave out of accordance with one’s values. This may in fact be true for some people. But there are some people who feel that all humans’ lives are of (very roughly) comparable intrinsic value. Such people (including myself) often do not behave in accordance with this feeling. My suggestion is that stimuli like the linked video can help them behave in accordance with their values.
I’ll just throw these links here for counterpoint:
James Shikwati: For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!
Dambisa Moyo: Dead Aid
Kevin Myers: Africa is giving nothing to anyone—apart from AIDS
And yeah, I agree with Tim that the line about “your daughter” is blatantly manipulative and I immediately tune out anyone who uses such rhetoric for any goal. I spend my resources on helping people who are important to me. (For real—most of my salary every month goes to friends and relatives.) Don’t trick me into thinking you’re important to me so you can get some of my money.
Do you have any reason to think that the issue of some developing world aid doing more harm than good applies to GiveWell’s top-ranked charities? If you have a good such reason I’d certainly be interested in knowing about it.
Regarding Malthusian problems, see the post to the GiveWell mailing list titled Population growth & health.
See my response to Tim.
I don’t understand your response to Tim. You say “the point wasn’t X, it was Y”, but I can’t see any difference between X and Y.
Another answer which may be more to the point of your question: I don’t think that the linked video makes a case for the people who would benefit from developing world aid literally being the viewer’s family/friends. I think that the linked video makes a case for the people who would benefit being somewhat similar to the viewer’s family/friends. It’s certainly not true that the people who would benefit are literally the viewer’s family/friends, but I think that most viewers with enough information would agree that the people who would benefit are somewhat similar to the viewer’s family/friends.
I think that the video helps make this point salient to potential donors for whom it would otherwise not be salient on account of the psychic numbing effect which Paul Slovic talks about.
Okay.
The typical human with lots of money for luxury spending who lives nearby a family who had a daughter with measles would not care about saving the daughter’s life as much as saving his own daughter’s life. But he would still be willing to donate something to save the daughter’s life. This is because the typical human has sufficiently strong prosocial tendencies to be happy to part with a relatively small amount of excess wealth to help somebody in need.
Now, you may insist that this pro-social tendency is directed at helping people who one knows personally and that to generalize it to those who one doesn’t know is to behave out of accordance with one’s values. This may in fact be true for some people. But there are some people who feel that all humans’ lives are of (very roughly) comparable intrinsic value. Such people (including myself) often do not behave in accordance with this feeling. My suggestion is that stimuli like the linked video can help them behave in accordance with their values.