Good guide, indeed having more money to spend through whatever career may allow for being more useful for charity.
The expedition analogy is good. I’ll get into discussing the specific goal or utility function. What is the goal we’re heading to?
I’d say the goal as I see it is to increase the intelligence (or cure the lack of it) to make the agents of this world able to willingly solve their problems, and thereby reach a state of technological advancement that allows them to get rid of all problems for good, and start doing better things such as spending time in paradise and exploring the universe.
We shouldn’t medicate our problems in the short-term, we should think in the long-term in curing them for good. How to do that? Scientific research into intelligence, artificial intelligence and human intelligence augmentation.
How does “saving” (should I say, prolonging?) African lives help with that? Not at all, in my view. Africa receives many billions of dollars in donations, there’s clearly something wrong with the way it works, and you’re not going to fix it by adding a million dollars to that sea of resources that doesn’t end up changing anything in the long-term. It’s like a car that leaks fuel, you can keep adding more and more fuel, or you should try and fix it, and that is what I suggest. You should rather spend a million dollars in a vital area that is badly lacking funding, such as intelligence augmentation and artificial intelligence.
I don’t think that we want to “save lives”. Save suffering instead. If you prolong an African life you’re probably prolonging suffering, which is a waste. A life of suffering and misery is not worth saving. People have no souls. This is a physical world, if you lose consciousness somewhere you still got plenty of it all around.
I think you’re falsely assuming that “Africa” is a single monolithic recipient for that “sea of resources”—that ignores both the spectacular variation between and within African nations, and the difference between resources given to a corrupt government aand resources applied by non-government organisations for the benefit of people there.
I think it is fair to say that the staggering sums of money given by Western nations to African governments has been at best a complete waste of money—in fact I consider that money to have caused significant net harm. It props up corrupt regimes, increases and strengthens class differences, and generally results in increased oppression and widespread misery of various kinds. Your argument applies very well to this—“Africa” does indeed receive billions of dollars, and there is indeed something broken (most of the governments receiving the money).
This argument does not apply to the international NGO’s working in Africa. Some of those organisations are short-term oriented and thus arguably pointless in the long term, but some are not. A classic example would be Kiva, which offers micro-loans for people to start small businesses to support themselves and family (incidentally not just in Africa) - there are a fair few organisations doing things like this, and it is “teach a man to fish” rather than “give a man fish”. These initiatives, when they work right (which they often do) help lift Africans out of poverty and put them in a position to do something about their own future (and Africa’s future). A lot of worthwhile initiatives centre around education, for instance, for fairly obvious reasons.
I think you’re conflating “intelligence” with other concepts such as education and good judgement (which are what’s actually needed here). Rephrased like that, it becomes obvious that a much more practical action is to fund and organise education of African people—give them the means with which to figure out the solutions to their own problems, but now rather than post-Singularity. Add direct financial support (eg. by Kiva or Grameen etc) in order that these now-educated people have the means to implement their ideas, and we have tomorrow’s solution today. This is currently happening, but all we tend to know about Africa’s current situation is an assortment of dramatic bad news merged together into a highly misleading narrative. To give you some idea of how significantly our perceptions differ from reality on this matter, here’s a TED talk from from the incomparable statistician Hans Rosling 4.5 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwS1uAdUcI—feel free to poke around for more recent presentations and data, of course, but even this old one is an eye-opener.
I’m not saying that investment in education and entrepreneurship in Africa is necessarily the most effective use of resources from a strictly utilitarian standpoint—what I am saying is that you have not presented a strong case for African investment not being a worthwhile use of resources. Personally I regard your argument largely as an excuse to not feel guilty about distant suffering, but that is just an unsupported opinion.
I’m reading this much later than it was written, but feel I must respond.
“Africa receives many billions of dollars in donations, there’s clearly something wrong with the way it works, and you’re not going to fix it by adding a million dollars...” Even if it were 100% true that there’s something wrong with the way it works, it DOES NOT FOLLOW that the answer is to give less (or none). It may be the case that we have not given enough.
“It’s like a car that leaks fuel, you can keep adding more and more fuel, or you should try and fix it...” Even if the analogy were 100% true and applicable, you offer a false dichotomy (add fuel OR fix it). It may be that we need to work on both simultaneously. To further the analogy, it may be that you have to add fuel to the car in the short term (knowing some will be lost), in order to keep it running long enough to get it to the mechanic who can do the long term fix.
“If you prolong an African life you’re probably prolonging suffering, which is a waste. A life of suffering and misery is not worth saving.” This is at best, horribly wrong-headed, and at worst, disgustingly elitist. I suspect it’s a troll. Only a fool thinks a life that contains suffering and misery is not worth saving. Some people indeed are suffering so much that they may prefer death. But that is THEIR choice, not yours or mine. If you’re really serious about triage, and how best to spend one’s money to relieve suffering, a little humility and compassion (qualities I see very little of in this comment) might go a long way toward achieving humane (and yet rational) solutions. I suspect JonatasMueller belongs to a set of people about whom no one will ever have to ask these hard questions, and I suspect his answer is influenced by that fact. And: there’s a subtle mistake here: the idea that reducing suffering does not include preserving or prolonging life. Says who?
″...the goal as I see it is to increase the intelligence (or cure the lack of it) to make the agents of this world able to willingly solve their problems, and thereby reach a state of technological advancement that allows them to get rid of all problems for good.” That’s a crap goal, if it crowds out other worthy goals. I believe we’re already as smart as we need to be, so any efforts to try to increase intelligence are a waste of resources. I agree advancing technology is important, but I believe sharing what we have is much much more important. Our problems are mainly political, not technological. What good will it do, it technology improves the lives of some, but the fruits of that technology are not shared?
Look how many scientific advancements that we have successfully made in the past 100 years, can you honestly tell me that you don’t think we can continue to increase our scientific method fast enough to solve intelligence as well?
If you do, then please read someofthesequences that focus on this topic and try to understand it better. Politics is not a field that will destroy our world if not treated correctly, humanity will survive and learn from our political mistakes eventually but its not an easy problem to solve quickly. However, not solving the crisis of uFAI is the greatest current existential risk to humanity according to my valuation with a confidence factor of 90%.
I don’t disagree with donating to Africa(via givewell.org) i just think that if you enjoy donating to Africa you should donate and equal amount to SIAI where they will put it to a better use in terms of the long term problems affecting them. In fact when Eliezer finished the sequences he said that whatever you feel like doing, go outside and do it. If donating to Africa makes you happy then do that and spend more time earning money to do that. However if you read more from LW you might decide that there is a faster solution to the problem in Africa :) and you might help us achieve it.
Good guide, indeed having more money to spend through whatever career may allow for being more useful for charity.
The expedition analogy is good. I’ll get into discussing the specific goal or utility function. What is the goal we’re heading to?
I’d say the goal as I see it is to increase the intelligence (or cure the lack of it) to make the agents of this world able to willingly solve their problems, and thereby reach a state of technological advancement that allows them to get rid of all problems for good, and start doing better things such as spending time in paradise and exploring the universe.
We shouldn’t medicate our problems in the short-term, we should think in the long-term in curing them for good. How to do that? Scientific research into intelligence, artificial intelligence and human intelligence augmentation.
How does “saving” (should I say, prolonging?) African lives help with that? Not at all, in my view. Africa receives many billions of dollars in donations, there’s clearly something wrong with the way it works, and you’re not going to fix it by adding a million dollars to that sea of resources that doesn’t end up changing anything in the long-term. It’s like a car that leaks fuel, you can keep adding more and more fuel, or you should try and fix it, and that is what I suggest. You should rather spend a million dollars in a vital area that is badly lacking funding, such as intelligence augmentation and artificial intelligence.
I don’t think that we want to “save lives”. Save suffering instead. If you prolong an African life you’re probably prolonging suffering, which is a waste. A life of suffering and misery is not worth saving. People have no souls. This is a physical world, if you lose consciousness somewhere you still got plenty of it all around.
I think you’re falsely assuming that “Africa” is a single monolithic recipient for that “sea of resources”—that ignores both the spectacular variation between and within African nations, and the difference between resources given to a corrupt government aand resources applied by non-government organisations for the benefit of people there.
I think it is fair to say that the staggering sums of money given by Western nations to African governments has been at best a complete waste of money—in fact I consider that money to have caused significant net harm. It props up corrupt regimes, increases and strengthens class differences, and generally results in increased oppression and widespread misery of various kinds. Your argument applies very well to this—“Africa” does indeed receive billions of dollars, and there is indeed something broken (most of the governments receiving the money).
This argument does not apply to the international NGO’s working in Africa. Some of those organisations are short-term oriented and thus arguably pointless in the long term, but some are not. A classic example would be Kiva, which offers micro-loans for people to start small businesses to support themselves and family (incidentally not just in Africa) - there are a fair few organisations doing things like this, and it is “teach a man to fish” rather than “give a man fish”. These initiatives, when they work right (which they often do) help lift Africans out of poverty and put them in a position to do something about their own future (and Africa’s future). A lot of worthwhile initiatives centre around education, for instance, for fairly obvious reasons.
I think you’re conflating “intelligence” with other concepts such as education and good judgement (which are what’s actually needed here). Rephrased like that, it becomes obvious that a much more practical action is to fund and organise education of African people—give them the means with which to figure out the solutions to their own problems, but now rather than post-Singularity. Add direct financial support (eg. by Kiva or Grameen etc) in order that these now-educated people have the means to implement their ideas, and we have tomorrow’s solution today. This is currently happening, but all we tend to know about Africa’s current situation is an assortment of dramatic bad news merged together into a highly misleading narrative. To give you some idea of how significantly our perceptions differ from reality on this matter, here’s a TED talk from from the incomparable statistician Hans Rosling 4.5 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwS1uAdUcI—feel free to poke around for more recent presentations and data, of course, but even this old one is an eye-opener.
I’m not saying that investment in education and entrepreneurship in Africa is necessarily the most effective use of resources from a strictly utilitarian standpoint—what I am saying is that you have not presented a strong case for African investment not being a worthwhile use of resources. Personally I regard your argument largely as an excuse to not feel guilty about distant suffering, but that is just an unsupported opinion.
Utter crap.
I’m reading this much later than it was written, but feel I must respond.
“Africa receives many billions of dollars in donations, there’s clearly something wrong with the way it works, and you’re not going to fix it by adding a million dollars...” Even if it were 100% true that there’s something wrong with the way it works, it DOES NOT FOLLOW that the answer is to give less (or none). It may be the case that we have not given enough.
“It’s like a car that leaks fuel, you can keep adding more and more fuel, or you should try and fix it...” Even if the analogy were 100% true and applicable, you offer a false dichotomy (add fuel OR fix it). It may be that we need to work on both simultaneously. To further the analogy, it may be that you have to add fuel to the car in the short term (knowing some will be lost), in order to keep it running long enough to get it to the mechanic who can do the long term fix.
“If you prolong an African life you’re probably prolonging suffering, which is a waste. A life of suffering and misery is not worth saving.” This is at best, horribly wrong-headed, and at worst, disgustingly elitist. I suspect it’s a troll. Only a fool thinks a life that contains suffering and misery is not worth saving. Some people indeed are suffering so much that they may prefer death. But that is THEIR choice, not yours or mine. If you’re really serious about triage, and how best to spend one’s money to relieve suffering, a little humility and compassion (qualities I see very little of in this comment) might go a long way toward achieving humane (and yet rational) solutions. I suspect JonatasMueller belongs to a set of people about whom no one will ever have to ask these hard questions, and I suspect his answer is influenced by that fact. And: there’s a subtle mistake here: the idea that reducing suffering does not include preserving or prolonging life. Says who?
″...the goal as I see it is to increase the intelligence (or cure the lack of it) to make the agents of this world able to willingly solve their problems, and thereby reach a state of technological advancement that allows them to get rid of all problems for good.” That’s a crap goal, if it crowds out other worthy goals. I believe we’re already as smart as we need to be, so any efforts to try to increase intelligence are a waste of resources. I agree advancing technology is important, but I believe sharing what we have is much much more important. Our problems are mainly political, not technological. What good will it do, it technology improves the lives of some, but the fruits of that technology are not shared?
You’ll find that this is a meme many on LW disagree with profusely.
Look how many scientific advancements that we have successfully made in the past 100 years, can you honestly tell me that you don’t think we can continue to increase our scientific method fast enough to solve intelligence as well?
If you do, then please read some of the sequences that focus on this topic and try to understand it better. Politics is not a field that will destroy our world if not treated correctly, humanity will survive and learn from our political mistakes eventually but its not an easy problem to solve quickly. However, not solving the crisis of uFAI is the greatest current existential risk to humanity according to my valuation with a confidence factor of 90%.
I don’t disagree with donating to Africa(via givewell.org) i just think that if you enjoy donating to Africa you should donate and equal amount to SIAI where they will put it to a better use in terms of the long term problems affecting them. In fact when Eliezer finished the sequences he said that whatever you feel like doing, go outside and do it. If donating to Africa makes you happy then do that and spend more time earning money to do that. However if you read more from LW you might decide that there is a faster solution to the problem in Africa :) and you might help us achieve it.