Right, maybe I should’ve clarified. For me, this post was about charity and aid in general, not EA in specific. Apologies for any confusion involved. I tagged the post EA because the post that inspired mine was EA adjacent and because I felt that much of what I said about charity in general also applies to EA. I’m new, so I don’t fully understand the tagging system. If my reasoning for the tag is flawed feel free to explain how, and I will remove it.
That said, let me break down my thoughts on EA charity once again, for the sake of clarity. I believe that everything I said in this post (ignoring institutional problems, not addressing poverty traps, being blind to nuances of specific situations) also applies to EA charities. This is not to say that other charities don’t have the same problems, but rather, that EA has them also. Now, I won’t claim to be aware of a wide scale of EA charities, in fact, I’m still new and I’ve encountered only a very few, with the one I referenced in the post being one example. I understand there might be many more, but when I made this post I had the unconditional cash transfers in mind.
The unconditional cash transfers, while circumventing many issues (middlemen, corruption, etc) fail in my view to address the myriad roots of poverty. Presupposing that there are markets capable of supplying needs for the recipients at scale, we would likely be safe in assuming that the recipients have a temporary boost in quality of life. We would not, however, be safe to assume that crime would go down, schools would be built, healthcare would be provided for… etc etc. Fundamentally, the unconditional cash transfers are just that: cash transfers that are unconditional. There is no impetus for providing any long term solution to the root issues at play. Do you take issue with this reasoning? If so, feel free to respond as such.
The reason I chose the millennium villages project was because it was an answer to my own framework. Unlike unconditional cash transfers, it made a serious (and under certain viewpoints, successful) attempt at addressing root issues. I could’ve used my framework of analysis to critique unconditional cash transfers, but I don’t think that would have been worthwhile. Clearly if you accept my framework that institutions and unique circumstances make poverty hard to solve there is little doubt that cash transfers will not be an adequate solution. Use of the project, was, in short, my attempt at steel manning the position that aid works or could work.
That said, if you have any examples of aid that has ‘worked’, I would be happy to look over them. For the purposes of this post I was merely laying out general principles I had gathered from a variety of sources. I do not have the same depth of research or knowledge as an actual subject matter expert, hence the disclaimer.
Onto the point about the goal of reducing poverty by half, I don’t dispute that. The problem is, however, that I don’t believe it has any great connection to aid. For instance, here is an article from the world bank on how China has contributed the vast majority of people lifted from extreme poverty. While it’s fair to claim the west has benefitted from economic growth, the causes of China’s rise have little to do with charity aid and more with improved governance, western investment, and sheer force of population. China’s poverty was not reduced by an influx of aid programs, but rather, a rapid industrialization that resulted in massive quality of life increases. This increase was in large part due to the growth of trade networks, infrastructure, and other fruits of strong (if corrupt) institutions. I don’t have any evidence directly on hand for this claim, but I think most would agree with it from common sense and their understanding of history. If you would like more rigorous proof feel free to request it. I don’t believe its necessary.
People exit poverty for a variety of reasons. It could be immigration, hard work, freak luck, or even aid, in some circumstances. But by and large I believe that history proves institutions to be the strongest factor behind poverty eradication. Attributing the poverty reduction of recent decades to aid alone is grossly misleading. As such I don’t find reductions in poverty to contradict my claim that aid fails. If anything i find it to prove my point, as the poverty decrease correlates with institutional growth (particularly of markets under a strong central government) rather than aid.
I hope this answers any questions you may have had. If not, feel free to ask for clarification. I’m new and still learning, so please feel free to correct me.
The unconditional cash transfers, while circumventing many issues (middlemen, corruption, etc) fail in my view to address the myriad roots of poverty.
Basically, you have some belief about the importance of addressing root causes, for which you don’t lie out evidence.
We would not, however, be safe to assume that crime would go down, schools would be built, healthcare would be provided for… etc etc. Fundamentally, the unconditional cash transfers are just that: cash transfers that are unconditional. There is no impetus for providing any long term solution to the root issues at play. Do you take issue with this reasoning?
Basically, your way of reasoning is that you dislike reasoning by empiric evidence and rather want to trust your intuition.
That’s not what rationalism is about. It’s rather about looking at empiric evidence and part of the reason that GiveDirectly gets recommended is that they manage to gather evidence about the effect of their interventions.
That said, if you have any examples of aid that has ‘worked’, I would be happy to look over them.
For all GiveWell-recommended charities, GiveWell has a document that describes the evidence that they work.
Onto the point about the goal of reducing poverty by half, I don’t dispute that. The problem is, however, that I don’t believe it has any great connection to aid. For instance, here is an article from the world bank on how China has contributed the vast majority of people lifted from extreme poverty.
If we take Nigeria as the largest African country by population it had 52% of its population living on under $2.15 2017 PPP dollars in 2000 and only 32% in 2015. While that’s not completely halving it’s still a strong success at reducing poverty.
Basically, you have some belief about the importance of addressing root causes, for which you don’t lie out evidence.
I’m… not too sure how to respond to this. For the first half of my post I focused almost exclusively on the causes of poverty, poverty traps, and the basic concept that poverty doesn’t simply disappear until the root causes are addressed. In the Millenium villages project I summarize the findings of many root causes, including lack of infrastructure (and subsequent lack of access to world markets), the settlement being distant from water sources, and a general lack of relevant infrastructure (schools, hospitals, etc) that caused the region to be so impoverished to begin with. Then in the institutional problem section I bring up the example of South Africa, which faces dire economic meltdown largely due to corruption and failure of energy infrastructure. In response to your post I also brough up the example of China, which developed through the presence of institutional growth and sound policymaking, and regressed to famines when none of these were present. (see the great leap forward under Mao)
In all of the examples I mentioned, we will find:
That there are a multitude of causes for the poverty, not just a direct lack of food or money, but rather, a root cause that will continue to create more poverty if left unaddressed.
A failure of institutions directly causing or being related to causes of poverty or hunger. (infrastructure failure and policymaking failures are of course part of what a state’s institutions are meant to deliver, which failed to in South Africa and CCP China under Mao)
No significant correlation between aid and improved outcomes. And, to the contrary, significant correlation between institutional growth and outcomes.
I am, to the best of my knowledge, using deductive reasoning. I begin from the general principles of what causes poverty. These principles, however, are not intuitive, nor did they originate from me. I cite multiple sources, historical precedents, and an entire book by award winning MIT researchers. Does this not count as rationalism? I believe I have used a variety of empirical evidence, although not all of them had fancy graphs to accompany them. I am also ready to defend the validity of my sources and the conclusions they draw. Do you take issue with any of them? If so, feel free to state your opinion.
As for Givedirectly specifically, I can mention a few issues I see with it’s claims of ‘effectiveness’. In the fundraiser video I linked previously, they mention a 2016 study finding an increase in incomes and spending (as expected), as well as positive economic effects 4 years later. HOWEVER… a follow up 9 years later found no continued effects. Insofar as meeting my metric of solving long term issues of poverty, GiveDirectly fails. Insofar as truly breaking the poverty cycle (which would mean a sustained rise in incomes), it also fails. Nevermind their lofty goal of ‘eradicating global extreme poverty’ claimed by the fundraising video. Is this sufficient empirical evidence in your view?
I understand that GiveDirectly may or may not be more effective or empirical than other charities. I do not, however, understand how it would meet the goal of ‘eradicating global extreme poverty’, which seems to be their stated goal. I can continue to find more examples with ease, but I don’t think I need to. Instead, I’d like to ask that you bring forward an example of aid being effective in reducing long term poverty at reasonable cost. If such an example does exist, and is fairly common, I imagine you would have no trouble finding it. If this is not the case, I don’t find sifting through hundreds of failures to be a worthwhile use of our time.
Now, onto Nigeria. I am once again unsure what your argument is. Yes, Nigeria has seen poverty reductions. So has China, and many areas in the world. I do not dispute that poverty can be reduced, only that aid alone fails to reduce poverty. Is there a proven connection between aid and poverty reduction in Nigeria?
Access to electricity and improving service delivery remain a priority, with 80 million Nigerians lacking access to grid electricity, and annual economic losses due to unreliable power are estimated at 28 billion dollars.
Q: In recent years, significant progress has been made, what are the main development outcomes that should be highlighted?
A: Nigeria has made some notable progress even within the challenging environment of increased poverty associated with growing insecurity and the economic downturn. The Government recently embarked on a set of bold reforms starting with unification of its multiple exchange rates, introduction of a market-based pricing mechanism for gasoline, eliminating subsidies and adjusting electricity tariffs. These measures allowed the government to cut non-essential expenditures and redirect resources towards the COVID-19 response both at federal and state levels; and improve debt transparency and accountability of its oil and gas sector. An important milestone, the country was officially declared free of polio in 2020. Notable efforts were made to increase accountability in the public sector, with 35 states publishing their annual budgets in 2020; and 15 states now operate a single treasury account.
Q: So, what lies ahead and how will we work to deliver results at scale?
A: The onset of the COVID-19 crisis has made the task that much more challenging and urgent because of the severity of the economic downturn and the decline in fiscal resources. Without decisive action to marshal the fiscal resources and tackle long-awaited structural reforms, Nigeria risks repeating the experience of the 1980s shocks, which set back the country’s development progress by decades.
Note that the big struggles the world bank references are in the realm of infrastructure, reform, and governmental action to both utilize resources and improve healthcare outcomes, as well as address corruption. The problem is ‘structural reforms’, the solution is ‘structural reforms’. Altogether Nigeria only strengthens my point about institutions being key to economic improvement. In fact, one of the world bank’s key observations is that:
...Poverty is increasingly being understood as a multidimensional phenomenon.[3] Even households who are not monetarily poor may still be unable to send their children to school or may have members who are malnourished. In participatory studies, poor people themselves say that non-monetary factors—including food security, housing, health, education, and security—matter directly for their wellbeing. Since not all of these factors can be accessed in the market, measuring monetary income or consumption alone may not be enough. Human capital, housing, and basic infrastructure are also key correlates of monetary poverty. Multidimensional poverty indicators, including the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index produced by the United Nations Development Programme and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, have thus arisen; the World Bank has its own Multidimensional Poverty Measure (MPM) that captures dimensions of education and basic infrastructure alongside monetary poverty.
So, what picture of poverty does the multidimensional approach paint in Nigeria? According to the MPM, as many as 47.3% of Nigerians—some 98 million people—live in multidimensional poverty.[4] This is more than the entire population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As such, Nigeria is the largest contributor to multidimensional poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region experiencing the highest levels of deprivations in multidimensional poverty. Meeting regional and global targets on non-monetary poverty—as well as monetary poverty—therefore hinges on Nigeria.
In other words, a myriad of root issues is causing poverty, not just direct lack of funds. In fact, even data about people breaking out of the poverty line can be misleading, because monetary gains may not increase access to social services or improve outcomes in other areas. Aid, charitable or otherwise, has not been mentioned by the world bank as a decisive factor in curbing poverty. Thus in every way Nigeria supports my thesis about poverty having root causes aid fails to address.
I have yet to come across a strong argument indicating that aid alone is sufficient to end poverty. You seem to believe otherwise. Can you find an example of this being the case? Thus far, I don’t believe you have made a sufficiently strong case for the negation of my claim. You have also neglected to state your competing viewpoint.
I have to ask what your view is. What do you think causes poverty? What do you think will solve it, long term? With such a wide gap in context it’s extremely difficult to understand where you are coming from. I am unsure if I see what the crux of this disagreement is, but if you would like to we could continue to find it.
I do not dispute that poverty can be reduced, only that aid alone fails to reduce poverty.
[...] I have yet to come across a strong argument indicating that aid alone is sufficient to end poverty
You seem to be relatively unclear about what exact thesis you are arguing for. It’s quite possible for aid to be useful and work together with other factors.
Thinking in terms of reducing poverty makes it easier to measure progress then if you think in essentialist terms about “ending poverty”.
So, what picture of poverty does the multidimensional approach paint in Nigeria? According to the MPM, as many as 47.3% of Nigerians—some 98 million people—live in multidimensional poverty.
Absolute numbers aren’t as interesting as how the number changes over time.
What do you think causes poverty?
That’s a bad question if you treat it as the central question. The better question is: “What interventions will reduce poverty?”
If I want to help someone who has a broken leg asking “What caused the broken leg?” only helps in a relatively minimal way with understanding the evidence-based treatments that actually help.
A core feature of the evidence-based revolution in medicine is about deemphazising the question about causes (or pathophysiological reasoning as the original paper that introduced the term calls it) when it comes to picking treatments and rather focus on measuring the effects of treatments in a systematic way.
Effective Altrusim is in part of a movement to do the same that Evidence-based Medicine did in the realm of philanthropy.
You seem to be relatively unclear about what exact thesis you are arguing for. It’s quite possible for aid to be useful and work together with other factors.
Ok, in that case, allow me to clarify.
I believe that while aid can be useful or effective in many instances (note that here I am using a much more limited definition of providing immediate quality of life boosts, as opposed to a long term solution), the effect does not extend to address long term issues that cause poverty. Thus poverty will continue to persist without being eradicated (what I would view as real effectiveness). Basically, while painkillers can help you with a broken leg, your leg is still broken. Painkillers alone, independent of other treatment, will fail to be effective in actually helping you walk again.
Note that I am not comparing the effects of different painkillers. I do not distinguish between scientifically researched painkillers and scientifically unsound homeopathy. That is besides the point of the post. The post is mainly about how painkillers cannot independently solve the problem. This is why I am not researching EA adjacent charities in greater detail. EA is a facet of the post, but not the focus. I have attempted to explain this in both my post and my response.
In plain language, I am saying that interventions may be successful in alleviating the negative effects of poverty (malnutrition, death, disease) over the short term. But they fail to address the long term causes of poverty and thus do not provide a feasible long term solution. Thus while it may ‘reduce poverty’ in a limited way I do not feel it meets the criteria for a meaningfully sustainable solution. I’ve already provided a long and exhaustive list of evidence for this, both in my post and my responses. I do not believe you have addressed my evidence properly.
I find that this has become a reoccurring pattern in our conversation. I have outlined many lists of evidence and why I believe it supports my thesis. Are you willing to take the time and examine them? If not, I don’t believe it will be productive to continue. In the interest of respecting your time I have done my best to summarize, analyze, and cut out relevant excerpts I believe support my argument. Can you do the same? If not, this will likely be my last response.
The key here is the question of what evidence implies what.
One sentence you wrote is: “To understand how to help the poor, we must first understand why they are poor, and maybe more importantly, why they stay poor.”
I basically answered by saying that the Millenium goals show that the poor don’t stay poor. You answered that this effect is strongly dominated by China. I responded by pointing on the largest African country and pointing to it’s success in poverty reduction and linked to statistics for all African countries showing that Nigeria is not untypical here.
You then said, well Nigeria is still “poor” by another metric. I grant that poverty in Nigeria isn’t completely eliminated. I then asked, okay, what about whether they made progress by the metric you care about?
If the answer is that they made some progress but there’s still a long way to go, you can argue that it’s not a full solution. That’s however a very different claim from it not being helpful.
Given that there’s no regression back to the levels of thirty years ago, the changes seem to be sustainable. They also seem big enough to be meaningful.
Right, maybe I should’ve clarified. For me, this post was about charity and aid in general, not EA in specific. Apologies for any confusion involved. I tagged the post EA because the post that inspired mine was EA adjacent and because I felt that much of what I said about charity in general also applies to EA. I’m new, so I don’t fully understand the tagging system. If my reasoning for the tag is flawed feel free to explain how, and I will remove it.
That said, let me break down my thoughts on EA charity once again, for the sake of clarity. I believe that everything I said in this post (ignoring institutional problems, not addressing poverty traps, being blind to nuances of specific situations) also applies to EA charities. This is not to say that other charities don’t have the same problems, but rather, that EA has them also. Now, I won’t claim to be aware of a wide scale of EA charities, in fact, I’m still new and I’ve encountered only a very few, with the one I referenced in the post being one example. I understand there might be many more, but when I made this post I had the unconditional cash transfers in mind.
The unconditional cash transfers, while circumventing many issues (middlemen, corruption, etc) fail in my view to address the myriad roots of poverty. Presupposing that there are markets capable of supplying needs for the recipients at scale, we would likely be safe in assuming that the recipients have a temporary boost in quality of life. We would not, however, be safe to assume that crime would go down, schools would be built, healthcare would be provided for… etc etc. Fundamentally, the unconditional cash transfers are just that: cash transfers that are unconditional. There is no impetus for providing any long term solution to the root issues at play. Do you take issue with this reasoning? If so, feel free to respond as such.
The reason I chose the millennium villages project was because it was an answer to my own framework. Unlike unconditional cash transfers, it made a serious (and under certain viewpoints, successful) attempt at addressing root issues. I could’ve used my framework of analysis to critique unconditional cash transfers, but I don’t think that would have been worthwhile. Clearly if you accept my framework that institutions and unique circumstances make poverty hard to solve there is little doubt that cash transfers will not be an adequate solution. Use of the project, was, in short, my attempt at steel manning the position that aid works or could work.
That said, if you have any examples of aid that has ‘worked’, I would be happy to look over them. For the purposes of this post I was merely laying out general principles I had gathered from a variety of sources. I do not have the same depth of research or knowledge as an actual subject matter expert, hence the disclaimer.
Onto the point about the goal of reducing poverty by half, I don’t dispute that. The problem is, however, that I don’t believe it has any great connection to aid. For instance, here is an article from the world bank on how China has contributed the vast majority of people lifted from extreme poverty. While it’s fair to claim the west has benefitted from economic growth, the causes of China’s rise have little to do with charity aid and more with improved governance, western investment, and sheer force of population. China’s poverty was not reduced by an influx of aid programs, but rather, a rapid industrialization that resulted in massive quality of life increases. This increase was in large part due to the growth of trade networks, infrastructure, and other fruits of strong (if corrupt) institutions. I don’t have any evidence directly on hand for this claim, but I think most would agree with it from common sense and their understanding of history. If you would like more rigorous proof feel free to request it. I don’t believe its necessary.
People exit poverty for a variety of reasons. It could be immigration, hard work, freak luck, or even aid, in some circumstances. But by and large I believe that history proves institutions to be the strongest factor behind poverty eradication. Attributing the poverty reduction of recent decades to aid alone is grossly misleading. As such I don’t find reductions in poverty to contradict my claim that aid fails. If anything i find it to prove my point, as the poverty decrease correlates with institutional growth (particularly of markets under a strong central government) rather than aid.
I hope this answers any questions you may have had. If not, feel free to ask for clarification. I’m new and still learning, so please feel free to correct me.
Basically, you have some belief about the importance of addressing root causes, for which you don’t lie out evidence.
Basically, your way of reasoning is that you dislike reasoning by empiric evidence and rather want to trust your intuition.
That’s not what rationalism is about. It’s rather about looking at empiric evidence and part of the reason that GiveDirectly gets recommended is that they manage to gather evidence about the effect of their interventions.
For all GiveWell-recommended charities, GiveWell has a document that describes the evidence that they work.
If we take Nigeria as the largest African country by population it had 52% of its population living on under $2.15 2017 PPP dollars in 2000 and only 32% in 2015. While that’s not completely halving it’s still a strong success at reducing poverty.
I’m… not too sure how to respond to this. For the first half of my post I focused almost exclusively on the causes of poverty, poverty traps, and the basic concept that poverty doesn’t simply disappear until the root causes are addressed. In the Millenium villages project I summarize the findings of many root causes, including lack of infrastructure (and subsequent lack of access to world markets), the settlement being distant from water sources, and a general lack of relevant infrastructure (schools, hospitals, etc) that caused the region to be so impoverished to begin with. Then in the institutional problem section I bring up the example of South Africa, which faces dire economic meltdown largely due to corruption and failure of energy infrastructure. In response to your post I also brough up the example of China, which developed through the presence of institutional growth and sound policymaking, and regressed to famines when none of these were present. (see the great leap forward under Mao)
In all of the examples I mentioned, we will find:
That there are a multitude of causes for the poverty, not just a direct lack of food or money, but rather, a root cause that will continue to create more poverty if left unaddressed.
A failure of institutions directly causing or being related to causes of poverty or hunger. (infrastructure failure and policymaking failures are of course part of what a state’s institutions are meant to deliver, which failed to in South Africa and CCP China under Mao)
No significant correlation between aid and improved outcomes. And, to the contrary, significant correlation between institutional growth and outcomes.
I am, to the best of my knowledge, using deductive reasoning. I begin from the general principles of what causes poverty. These principles, however, are not intuitive, nor did they originate from me. I cite multiple sources, historical precedents, and an entire book by award winning MIT researchers. Does this not count as rationalism? I believe I have used a variety of empirical evidence, although not all of them had fancy graphs to accompany them. I am also ready to defend the validity of my sources and the conclusions they draw. Do you take issue with any of them? If so, feel free to state your opinion.
As for Givedirectly specifically, I can mention a few issues I see with it’s claims of ‘effectiveness’. In the fundraiser video I linked previously, they mention a 2016 study finding an increase in incomes and spending (as expected), as well as positive economic effects 4 years later. HOWEVER… a follow up 9 years later found no continued effects. Insofar as meeting my metric of solving long term issues of poverty, GiveDirectly fails. Insofar as truly breaking the poverty cycle (which would mean a sustained rise in incomes), it also fails. Nevermind their lofty goal of ‘eradicating global extreme poverty’ claimed by the fundraising video. Is this sufficient empirical evidence in your view?
I understand that GiveDirectly may or may not be more effective or empirical than other charities. I do not, however, understand how it would meet the goal of ‘eradicating global extreme poverty’, which seems to be their stated goal. I can continue to find more examples with ease, but I don’t think I need to. Instead, I’d like to ask that you bring forward an example of aid being effective in reducing long term poverty at reasonable cost. If such an example does exist, and is fairly common, I imagine you would have no trouble finding it. If this is not the case, I don’t find sifting through hundreds of failures to be a worthwhile use of our time.
Now, onto Nigeria. I am once again unsure what your argument is. Yes, Nigeria has seen poverty reductions. So has China, and many areas in the world. I do not dispute that poverty can be reduced, only that aid alone fails to reduce poverty. Is there a proven connection between aid and poverty reduction in Nigeria?
The world bank seems to believe otherwise.
Note that the big struggles the world bank references are in the realm of infrastructure, reform, and governmental action to both utilize resources and improve healthcare outcomes, as well as address corruption. The problem is ‘structural reforms’, the solution is ‘structural reforms’. Altogether Nigeria only strengthens my point about institutions being key to economic improvement. In fact, one of the world bank’s key observations is that:
In other words, a myriad of root issues is causing poverty, not just direct lack of funds. In fact, even data about people breaking out of the poverty line can be misleading, because monetary gains may not increase access to social services or improve outcomes in other areas. Aid, charitable or otherwise, has not been mentioned by the world bank as a decisive factor in curbing poverty. Thus in every way Nigeria supports my thesis about poverty having root causes aid fails to address.
I have yet to come across a strong argument indicating that aid alone is sufficient to end poverty. You seem to believe otherwise. Can you find an example of this being the case? Thus far, I don’t believe you have made a sufficiently strong case for the negation of my claim. You have also neglected to state your competing viewpoint.
I have to ask what your view is. What do you think causes poverty? What do you think will solve it, long term? With such a wide gap in context it’s extremely difficult to understand where you are coming from. I am unsure if I see what the crux of this disagreement is, but if you would like to we could continue to find it.
You seem to be relatively unclear about what exact thesis you are arguing for. It’s quite possible for aid to be useful and work together with other factors.
Thinking in terms of reducing poverty makes it easier to measure progress then if you think in essentialist terms about “ending poverty”.
Absolute numbers aren’t as interesting as how the number changes over time.
That’s a bad question if you treat it as the central question. The better question is: “What interventions will reduce poverty?”
If I want to help someone who has a broken leg asking “What caused the broken leg?” only helps in a relatively minimal way with understanding the evidence-based treatments that actually help.
A core feature of the evidence-based revolution in medicine is about deemphazising the question about causes (or pathophysiological reasoning as the original paper that introduced the term calls it) when it comes to picking treatments and rather focus on measuring the effects of treatments in a systematic way.
Effective Altrusim is in part of a movement to do the same that Evidence-based Medicine did in the realm of philanthropy.
Ok, in that case, allow me to clarify.
I believe that while aid can be useful or effective in many instances (note that here I am using a much more limited definition of providing immediate quality of life boosts, as opposed to a long term solution), the effect does not extend to address long term issues that cause poverty. Thus poverty will continue to persist without being eradicated (what I would view as real effectiveness). Basically, while painkillers can help you with a broken leg, your leg is still broken. Painkillers alone, independent of other treatment, will fail to be effective in actually helping you walk again.
Note that I am not comparing the effects of different painkillers. I do not distinguish between scientifically researched painkillers and scientifically unsound homeopathy. That is besides the point of the post. The post is mainly about how painkillers cannot independently solve the problem. This is why I am not researching EA adjacent charities in greater detail. EA is a facet of the post, but not the focus. I have attempted to explain this in both my post and my response.
In plain language, I am saying that interventions may be successful in alleviating the negative effects of poverty (malnutrition, death, disease) over the short term. But they fail to address the long term causes of poverty and thus do not provide a feasible long term solution. Thus while it may ‘reduce poverty’ in a limited way I do not feel it meets the criteria for a meaningfully sustainable solution. I’ve already provided a long and exhaustive list of evidence for this, both in my post and my responses. I do not believe you have addressed my evidence properly.
I find that this has become a reoccurring pattern in our conversation. I have outlined many lists of evidence and why I believe it supports my thesis. Are you willing to take the time and examine them? If not, I don’t believe it will be productive to continue. In the interest of respecting your time I have done my best to summarize, analyze, and cut out relevant excerpts I believe support my argument. Can you do the same? If not, this will likely be my last response.
The key here is the question of what evidence implies what.
One sentence you wrote is: “To understand how to help the poor, we must first understand why they are poor, and maybe more importantly, why they stay poor.”
I basically answered by saying that the Millenium goals show that the poor don’t stay poor. You answered that this effect is strongly dominated by China. I responded by pointing on the largest African country and pointing to it’s success in poverty reduction and linked to statistics for all African countries showing that Nigeria is not untypical here.
You then said, well Nigeria is still “poor” by another metric. I grant that poverty in Nigeria isn’t completely eliminated. I then asked, okay, what about whether they made progress by the metric you care about?
If the answer is that they made some progress but there’s still a long way to go, you can argue that it’s not a full solution. That’s however a very different claim from it not being helpful.
Given that there’s no regression back to the levels of thirty years ago, the changes seem to be sustainable. They also seem big enough to be meaningful.