The OP suggests that colonization is in fact a proven way to turn poor countries into productive ones.
Nope. Provide a quote or retract.
What I actually said was that nothing short of colonisation is known to work.
Salemicus
Karma: 2,610
So you’re doubling down. Ok, whatever.
No, I have nothing to say about the rest of your comment. I think productive discussion normally requires that both participants feel the other is arguing in good faith. I don’t feel that.
Taking Effective Altruism Seriously
You also don’t provide an argument that Harvard has a high use for marginal dollars.
My argument is precisely the opposite. My argument is that Harvard is so rich that it has very low use for marginal dollars, but at the same time it has a credible commitment to its future state, so large donations to Harvard will serve to swell its endowment. And also that Harvard has demonstrated the ability to manage its endowment well. Therefore funds donated to Harvard are likely to be invested indefinitely—and therefore to provide increasing amounts of economic tools that will benefit mankind, both now and in the future.
Unfortunately, most of the funds invested to finance people like Norman Borlaug turned out not to be financing Norman Borlaug.
Sure, I wasn’t suggesting that Borlaug’s work was replicable.
Still, if you want to generalize from that example, feel free.
When did I generalize from that example? I was merely refuting the crass claim that giving money to a starving woman and child (note the incidental misandry!) must be better than creating economic tools.
That’s true. But conditions in sub-Saharan Africa have improved by a lot less than in other regions that were extremely poor 50 years ago, such as China and South-East Asia. For most of that period, growth in Africa was slower than growth in the West, despite the fact that catch-up growth is much easier. Indeed, sub-Saharan Africa continues to fall further behind China (growth rate of 4.24% versus 7.7%, both for 2013) despite the fact that catch-up growth should favour Africa.
This is not a success story.
I am astonished by this comment, and even more so that it has been upvoted. I wrote (and it’s clear for all to see):
Providing cash transfers to [the people there] mostly merely raises consumption, rather than substantially raising productivity.
This is backed up by the paper, which notes that just 39% of the cash transfers boosted assets (see pg 12 and Table1), meaning that 61% of the transfer had been consumed. The productivity effects were similarly modest. And note that these figures were taken just one year after the transfer, and so likely overestimate the long-term effect; if more time had elapsed, it is likely that more of the capital would have been spent down. Note that this is the opposite of what we want. If the transferees were able to invest this money wisely, their assets after a period would be greater by more than 100% of the transfer.
You misquoted me, leaving out the “mostly” and “substantially,” and then claim that I am misrepresenting the paper, because the paper does show some (small) effects on assets and productivity. Indeed it does, but this in no way contradicts what I wrote.
Do you have so little faith in your own position that you cannot bring yourself to quote me honestly?
I think you are confused. You say I don’t suggest an alternative, but then you correctly identify my suggested alternative in the very next sentence.
To be clear: None of the top recommended charities on GiveWell, including Give Directly, are aimed at famine relief, so if your top concern is starvation, your complaint should be directed at them. But if you want specific examples of such tools, I would certainly say that the funds invested to finance Norman Borlaug ’s research were better spent than wasting them on aid, because that investment created the economic tools to prevent future famines, as opposed to temporary relief. See the Maimonides quote at the top.
To expand on what OrphanWilde wrote:
The Just World Hypothesis can be summarised as “you reap what you sow.” If you wish to argue that you don’t “deserve” to reap what you sow (perhaps because you didn’t have access to better seeds), or that it’s not “just” to reap what you sow (because everyone should reap in rough equality, regardless of how they sowed), or similar, that’s fine, but you aren’t arguing against the Just World Hypothesis.
So when we see the fruit, the Just World Hypothesis tells us: that’s probably how the person sowed the seeds. And yes, there is noise, which is why it’s a heuristic, not an infallible rule. But the whole reason to sow the seeds in the first place was to cause them to bear fruit. “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” In other words, Coherent Extrapolated Volition.
So to take an example from the original post—smoking. If I meet someone with lung cancer, the overwhelming likelihood is that they are responsible for their own problem, through smoking. But if I smoke and then I get lung cancer, I’ll want to make excuses for myself, and will stubbornly refuse to make the connection between my own culpable past behaviour (the sowing) and my present misfortune (the reaping). People who complain about the Just World Hypothesis want me to extend this non-judgemental behaviour to everyone else. But just as with the Fundamental Attribution Error, the problem is not that I am being too harsh on other people, but that I am being too easy on myself. I am right to draw the connection between behaviour and outcomes for everyone else, and I should do the same for myself.
Excellent post.
Related: It only takes a small extension of the logic to show that the Just World Hypothesis is a useful heuristic.
You will pay extra, as in you will pay more than the ring is worth. If you buy a diamond ring, turn around and try to sell it back, they’ll give you something like 30% for it.
This has always struck me as such a strange argument against buying a diamond ring, because it’s true about every retail purchase. If you buy a chair, then turn around and try to sell it back to the store, you’d be lucky to get 30%, but no-one thinks that’s an argument for sitting on the floor. You buy a chair because you want to sit on it, not as the start of a complicated chair-resale scheme. Similarly, you buy a diamond ring because you (or your beloved) want to wear it.
Note: I am not blaming you in particular, because this is a popular argument, but talk about a selective demand for rigour!
Biology may include studying traditions of behaviour, but biology is not itself a tradition of behaviour.
Regarding the question of what ancient Greeks meant by “the good,” I’d start with the SEP.
I have no idea about anthropological data from non-Western cultures.
This is a very old argument. Certainly anyone familiar with Nietzsche or Strauss will have seen one version of it rehearsed. But it’s not entirely persuasive (there are some excellent counter-arguments already in this thread), and there are reams of literature on it.
The truth is, we do not know for certain what Plato or Aristotle really meant, and these philological arguments don’t—can’t—settle the matter.
That’s possible. It’s also possible, as Thiel says, that people shy away from unpopular truths out of conformity bias. Which is the bigger bias?
In Thiel’s view, (and mine), the chief problem is not that people are overconfidently proposing answers to that question. The chief problem is that people have no answers at all to that question, and can’t think of any ways to generate them. You are right that it’s a hard question, because you can be mistaken, and reversed stupidity is not truth, and so on. But it’s not an impossible one.
Look, a single quote like this is never going to prove, to the satisfaction of the sceptical, a controversial thesis. But whole sections of the book are dedicated to arguing in favour of what Thiel calls the “determinate” viewpoint (that what matters is vision, planning and execution, and “secrets”) and against the “indeterminate” viewpoint (it’s all social context, luck, insurance, EMH). See for example this lecture in the series on which the book was based. It’s possible Thiel goes too far in some instances, but the point he’s making here, that people heavily underrate planning and heavily overrate chance is clearly true. As he writes elsewhere in the book:
Indefinite attitudes to the future explain what’s most dysfunctional in our world today. Process trumps substance: when people lack concrete plans to carry out, they use formal rules to assemble a portfolio of various options. This describes Americans today. In middle school, we’re encouraged to start hoarding “extracurricular activities.” In high school, ambitious students compete even harder to appear omnicompetent. By the time a student gets to college, he’s spent a decade curating a bewilderingly diverse résumé to prepare for a completely unknowable future. Come what may, he’s ready—for nothing in particular.
If you have a substantive counterargument to make, I’d like to hear it. But your drive-by insults aren’t helpful.
Err… I don’t know. Proposing with a fake £10 ring sounds cheesy to me. You can always go shopping together for the wedding bands :-)
I agree it would be cheesy to propose with something fake-looking, but you can buy a really nice-looking ring for that price, that she is unlikely to realise isn’t real (unless she’s a jeweller). I proposed that way and afterwards when I told my fiancee that we had to buy a real ring, she was surprised that the ring wasn’t real. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her :)
The problem with non-GIA certificates is that because GIA is the standard, the reason that anyone submitted to a non-GIA authority is that they think they’ll get a higher price if they sell it with a non-GIA certificate. In which case you, as customer, are paying more for the same diamond...
Well, the first choice is between yellow and white—some people want yellow (gold) jewelry.
This is true. As the fiancee wears both gold and silver, I assumed she was OK with both.
This is a perfect exemplar of something I really hate about this website. A poster asks for advice about how to buy a diamond, and instead he gets mostly replies saying “don’t buy a diamond.” I will try and actually be helpful.
My advice would be:
Your girlfriend probably has much stronger views than you do about jewellery, and after all she will be the one wearing it. Propose with a “fake” ring, then go shopping for the “real” ring together. I got a very nice-looking ring off Amazon for £10 to propose with. This minimises the chance of making a bad decision, and is also a romantic thing to do together.
If you do insist on buying the ring beforehand, make sure you can take it back. Many places will do returns within 30 days. Borrow a ring she finds comfortable to get the sizing.
Do not get hung up about high degrees of quality. VS2 clarity and H colour is plenty. She will never tell the difference between having a VS2 and VVS1 diamond on her finger—these differences are only visible when put next to another diamond in the right light, which will never happen.
But make sure the cut is top quality.
Shop around. My experience is in London, but over here the prices in the diamond quarter and online are about the same. Beware of anyone who won’t give you a straight price. Despite what anyone tells you, diamonds are close to commodities.
Make sure you get a certificate, and don’t buy anything with a non-GIA certificate.
She will be wearing the ring all the time, and indefinitely into the future, which means there will be inevitable wear-and-tear. So platinum is probably the best metal.
There is no reason to spend anything like the upper range of your budget. You can get an extremely nice (genuine) ring in the bottom half of that price range, and artificial will only be cheaper.
What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
The first half of your “summary” is a utilitarian framing, and the second half is a recommendation of investment in the West. Neither are anywhere in the post. So no, this is not a fair summary.
My two-sentence summary would be:
You’ll note that all these concepts are mentioned in the post, rather than surreptitiously snuck in from outside.