This topic was posted at Less Wrong (by Phil Goetz), but apparently Eliezer thought it would fit better here.
If the goal is to encourage aid to become more effective and evidence-based, I don’t think that shouting “Stop the aid!” will help. Setting yourself up in opposition to aid will just make the pro-aid team rally together against you, and in a head-to-head matchup the anti-aid side is at a huge disadvantage in winning over public opinion and celebrity culture (pro-aid forces have better ties to establishment power, emotions, common sense, and money). At worst, the pro-aid side will increasingly to see talk of logic, evidence, and counterproductive charity as the other side’s buzzwords, or part of the other side’s agenda. We have a better chance at getting more effective aid if the people arguing for more reasonable, rigorously-evaluated aid demonstrate that they’re on the same side (the pro-helping side) by talking about (and emphasizing) what does work. Ideally, they’d even get involved to improve aid programs (like the MIT Poverty Action Lab), raise money for effective charity (like GiveWell), or run their own programs.
(Disclosure: I may be influenced by the fact that I think aid to Africa has been doing more good than harm, and that our best hope is to make incremental improvements and give more.)
This topic was posted at Less Wrong (by Phil Goetz), but apparently Eliezer thought it would fit better here.
If the goal is to encourage aid to become more effective and evidence-based, I don’t think that shouting “Stop the aid!” will help. Setting yourself up in opposition to aid will just make the pro-aid team rally together against you, and in a head-to-head matchup the anti-aid side is at a huge disadvantage in winning over public opinion and celebrity culture (pro-aid forces have better ties to establishment power, emotions, common sense, and money). At worst, the pro-aid side will increasingly to see talk of logic, evidence, and counterproductive charity as the other side’s buzzwords, or part of the other side’s agenda. We have a better chance at getting more effective aid if the people arguing for more reasonable, rigorously-evaluated aid demonstrate that they’re on the same side (the pro-helping side) by talking about (and emphasizing) what does work. Ideally, they’d even get involved to improve aid programs (like the MIT Poverty Action Lab), raise money for effective charity (like GiveWell), or run their own programs.
(Disclosure: I may be influenced by the fact that I think aid to Africa has been doing more good than harm, and that our best hope is to make incremental improvements and give more.)