Rationally I have to question whether giving money to charities for use in third world countries is a rational decision at all. While there are obvious benefits to, say, exterminating diseases such as polio, measles, ect. I have to question whether many of these charities are even worth investing in at all. We may claim we are looking at X many years of better life, but we have to consider:
1) Does that take into account the fact that these people are now more likely to have OTHER problems, seeing as they aren’t dying from this one?
2) Are these numbers totally made up? (The answer appears to be yes)
3) Does this take into account that some lives are considerably less valuable than others?
If I am rescuing people in Africa, their median economic output is going to be far below what I would get for rescuing but a single person in the US, and moreover, the person in Africa is going to accrue additional expenses; their economic activity is unlikely to vastly outweigh the cost of sustaining them, while the person in the US is far more likely to generate a great deal of additional economic activity beyond what is necessary to sustain them.
While it may sound cynical, if there are fewer people in Africa, then that means there are fewer people who are living in poverty; if more people there starve to death today, there will be less people starving to death there in twenty years if we save them and allow them to reproduce. Moreover, if you save one person in the US and make them self sufficient, that is a huge boost. Additionally from a personal standpoint, helping out someone locally is far more likely to bring me benefits than helping out someone in Timbuktu, and, rationally, if I’m spending money and have the option of seeing benefits myself, isn’t it more rational for me to spend the money in that way, because then I can actually appreciate the benefits of my personal generosity? Doesn’t that also encourage me to be more generous in the future, and allow others to be more generous as well? Someone who can’t even make ends meet is not going to be of the same generosity as someone who is making $60k/year.
The numbers in the DALY chart above come from the DCP2 project’s aggregation of cost effectiveness estimates. There are definitely errors, some of them large, but the range is there. As in, many treatments have low cost effectiveness, while others, like anti-malaria nets have strong evidence for high cost effectiveness.
“some lives are considerably less valuable than others”
I disagree on that. Averting suffering is valuable regardless of who’s suffering it is. Why are you optimizing for “economic output”?
“helping out someone locally is far more likely to bring me benefits”
Helping people, locally or remotely, is unlikely to bring you benefits. If you want to help your future self you do best saving your money or investing it. Just as you do better to purchase fuzzies and utilons separately you also do better to purchase self-benefits and utilons separately.
rationally, if I’m spending money and have the option of seeing benefits myself, isn’t it more rational for me to spend the money in that way, because then I can actually appreciate the benefits of my personal generosity?
It depends on what you’re optimizing for—whether you value helping people, or seeing people helped (or if you value both, which one you’re focusing on with the donation in question). Being rational determines how you go about getting the things you value, not what your values are.
That said, your other arguments seem to be pointing at value-added beyond helping the one person? It does make sense to take that into account. I’m not confident of this, but I suspect that it’s not enough to make giving locally be the better option, because there is such a big difference in the amount of money required to make someone self-sufficient in the richest vs. the poorest countries.
Someone who can’t even make ends meet is not going to be of the same generosity as someone who is making $60k/year.
As a percentage of income, poorer people tend to be more generous. (Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read this, and the details of what was counted as generous (giving to friends and acquaintances, or only donations). I think the study only included people in the US.)
Rationally I have to question whether giving money to charities for use in third world countries is a rational decision at all. While there are obvious benefits to, say, exterminating diseases such as polio, measles, ect. I have to question whether many of these charities are even worth investing in at all. We may claim we are looking at X many years of better life, but we have to consider:
1) Does that take into account the fact that these people are now more likely to have OTHER problems, seeing as they aren’t dying from this one?
2) Are these numbers totally made up? (The answer appears to be yes)
3) Does this take into account that some lives are considerably less valuable than others?
If I am rescuing people in Africa, their median economic output is going to be far below what I would get for rescuing but a single person in the US, and moreover, the person in Africa is going to accrue additional expenses; their economic activity is unlikely to vastly outweigh the cost of sustaining them, while the person in the US is far more likely to generate a great deal of additional economic activity beyond what is necessary to sustain them.
While it may sound cynical, if there are fewer people in Africa, then that means there are fewer people who are living in poverty; if more people there starve to death today, there will be less people starving to death there in twenty years if we save them and allow them to reproduce. Moreover, if you save one person in the US and make them self sufficient, that is a huge boost. Additionally from a personal standpoint, helping out someone locally is far more likely to bring me benefits than helping out someone in Timbuktu, and, rationally, if I’m spending money and have the option of seeing benefits myself, isn’t it more rational for me to spend the money in that way, because then I can actually appreciate the benefits of my personal generosity? Doesn’t that also encourage me to be more generous in the future, and allow others to be more generous as well? Someone who can’t even make ends meet is not going to be of the same generosity as someone who is making $60k/year.
“Does that take into account the fact that these people are now more likely to have OTHER problems, seeing as they aren’t dying from this one?”
This turns out to not be very significant.
“Are these numbers totally made up?”
The numbers in the DALY chart above come from the DCP2 project’s aggregation of cost effectiveness estimates. There are definitely errors, some of them large, but the range is there. As in, many treatments have low cost effectiveness, while others, like anti-malaria nets have strong evidence for high cost effectiveness.
“some lives are considerably less valuable than others”
I disagree on that. Averting suffering is valuable regardless of who’s suffering it is. Why are you optimizing for “economic output”?
“helping out someone locally is far more likely to bring me benefits”
Helping people, locally or remotely, is unlikely to bring you benefits. If you want to help your future self you do best saving your money or investing it. Just as you do better to purchase fuzzies and utilons separately you also do better to purchase self-benefits and utilons separately.
It depends on what you’re optimizing for—whether you value helping people, or seeing people helped (or if you value both, which one you’re focusing on with the donation in question). Being rational determines how you go about getting the things you value, not what your values are.
That said, your other arguments seem to be pointing at value-added beyond helping the one person? It does make sense to take that into account. I’m not confident of this, but I suspect that it’s not enough to make giving locally be the better option, because there is such a big difference in the amount of money required to make someone self-sufficient in the richest vs. the poorest countries.
As a percentage of income, poorer people tend to be more generous. (Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read this, and the details of what was counted as generous (giving to friends and acquaintances, or only donations). I think the study only included people in the US.)