I don’t really understand how your central point applies here. The idea of “money saves lives” is not supposed to be a general rule of society, but rather a local point about Alice and Bob—namely, donating ~5k will save a life. That doesn’t need to be always true under all circumstances, there just needs to be some repeatable action that Alice and Bob can take (e.g, donating to the AMF) that costs 5k for them that reliably results in a life being saved. (Your point about prolonging life is true, but since the people dying of malaria are generally under 5, the amount of QALY’s produced is pretty close to an entire human lifetime)
It doesn’t really matter, for the rest of the argument, how this causal relationship works. It could be that donating 5k causes more bednets to be distributed, it could be that donating 5k allows for effective lobbying to improve economic growth to the value of one life, or it could be that the money is burnt in a sacrificial pyre to the God of Charitable Sacrifices, who then descends from the heavens and miraculously cures a child dying of malaria. From the point of view of Alice and Bob, the mechanism isn’t important if you’re talking on the level of individual donations.
In other words, Alice and Bob are talking on the margins here, and on the margin, 5k spent equals one live saved, at least for now.
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I seem to have overcomplicated the point made in this post by adding the system-lens to this situation. It isn’t irrelevant, it is simply besides the point for Alice and Bob.
The goal I am focusing on is a ‘system overhaul’ not a concrete example like this.
I was also reminded of how detrimental the confrontational tone and haughtiness by Alice and the lack of clarity and self-understanding of Bob is for learning, change and understanding. How it creates a loop where the interaction itself doesn’t seem to bring either any closer to being more in tune with their values and beliefs. It seems to further widen the gulf between their respective positions, instead of capitalizing on their respective differences to further improve on facets of their values-to-actions efficiency ratio that their opposite seems capable of helping them with.
But I didn’t focus much on this point in my comment.
I don’t really understand how your central point applies here. The idea of “money saves lives” is not supposed to be a general rule of society, but rather a local point about Alice and Bob—namely, donating ~5k will save a life. That doesn’t need to be always true under all circumstances, there just needs to be some repeatable action that Alice and Bob can take (e.g, donating to the AMF) that costs 5k for them that reliably results in a life being saved. (Your point about prolonging life is true, but since the people dying of malaria are generally under 5, the amount of QALY’s produced is pretty close to an entire human lifetime)
It doesn’t really matter, for the rest of the argument, how this causal relationship works. It could be that donating 5k causes more bednets to be distributed, it could be that donating 5k allows for effective lobbying to improve economic growth to the value of one life, or it could be that the money is burnt in a sacrificial pyre to the God of Charitable Sacrifices, who then descends from the heavens and miraculously cures a child dying of malaria. From the point of view of Alice and Bob, the mechanism isn’t important if you’re talking on the level of individual donations.
In other words, Alice and Bob are talking on the margins here, and on the margin, 5k spent equals one live saved, at least for now.
Hello Jay Bailey,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I seem to have overcomplicated the point made in this post by adding the system-lens to this situation. It isn’t irrelevant, it is simply besides the point for Alice and Bob.
The goal I am focusing on is a ‘system overhaul’ not a concrete example like this.
I was also reminded of how detrimental the confrontational tone and haughtiness by Alice and the lack of clarity and self-understanding of Bob is for learning, change and understanding. How it creates a loop where the interaction itself doesn’t seem to bring either any closer to being more in tune with their values and beliefs. It seems to further widen the gulf between their respective positions, instead of capitalizing on their respective differences to further improve on facets of their values-to-actions efficiency ratio that their opposite seems capable of helping them with.
But I didn’t focus much on this point in my comment.
Kindly, Caerulea-Lawrence