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.
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.