I realize people have to make decisions regarding how to best distribute their own resources, and I agree that “whichever cause saves the most lives” is a far, far better choice criterion than “whichever cause is more likely to make others look admiringly at me”. That’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned. Of course we each have to deal with, if not a literal lack of sufficient resources, the difficulty of figuring out how to distribute resources effectively where they are needed. My comment was meant simply to caution people against assuming too quickly that they know they’re dealing with a zero-sum tradeoff, which could lead them to make a decision that effectively ends up saving fewer people.
I’m sure there’s a component of having to avoid spending too much time seeking more information as people keep dying left and right (as they wait for you to make up your mind), but given that, I think my point still stands. Not every situation is as clear-cut as it might seem to be at first, and plus, when it comes to the information people have available about possible charitable causes, there’s a lot of “noise” to sort through (case in point: some celebrities are very gung-ho about “curing autism”, to the point where I doubt that some of them even realize that autism isn’t fatal!)
I realize people have to make decisions regarding how to best distribute their own resources, and I agree that “whichever cause saves the most lives” is a far, far better choice criterion than “whichever cause is more likely to make others look admiringly at me”. That’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned. Of course we each have to deal with, if not a literal lack of sufficient resources, the difficulty of figuring out how to distribute resources effectively where they are needed. My comment was meant simply to caution people against assuming too quickly that they know they’re dealing with a zero-sum tradeoff, which could lead them to make a decision that effectively ends up saving fewer people.
I’m sure there’s a component of having to avoid spending too much time seeking more information as people keep dying left and right (as they wait for you to make up your mind), but given that, I think my point still stands. Not every situation is as clear-cut as it might seem to be at first, and plus, when it comes to the information people have available about possible charitable causes, there’s a lot of “noise” to sort through (case in point: some celebrities are very gung-ho about “curing autism”, to the point where I doubt that some of them even realize that autism isn’t fatal!)