I think the idea would not be to pile onto the billionare-bashing and try to nag Elon into donating (that would be too politicizing as you say, and we wouldn’t want to alienate Elon who is already fairly EA-aligned in his own unique way), but rather to publish a bunch of “well, actually...” type posts explaining how we think six billion dollars could most effectively be spent to reduce human suffering. Hopefully the effect would be to help raise the profile of EA while raising the sophistication / sanity level of the surrounding conversation at the same time.
I mostly agree with you, but I think that “raising the sophistication” here might be harder than most people think, and I strongly believe our current media environment (plus social networks) is not conducive to such sophistication.
Plus, I was intrigued by this sentence:
… Elon who is already fairly EA-aligned in his own unique way
I was wondering what made you say this, then I googled it up a bit, and decided to share some references, if anyone else ever needs to justify such a claim:
But notice we now apparently agree that Elon Musk is well aware of EA-thinking, so I’m not sure if there’s any additional value in getting Musk’s attention to EA—which makes me even more suspicious about what could be our benefit from stepping into this “6 bn” debate.
Btw, NYT (a little late for the fray) has called Musk’s debate with WFP an example of Trolling Philantrhopy. But the text is not as bad as the title.
And WFP has published a report describing how they would spend the $6.6bn. As I mentioned above, the goal is to save 42 mi people from hunger, not saving 42 mi—i.e., I don’t think all of them would die this year (also, some of the survivors will die next year even if assisted, so WFP just bought them another year). I’d really like to see a rough napkin CBA estimating how many lives (= aprox. 30 QALY) are saved by these programs.
I think the idea would not be to pile onto the billionare-bashing and try to nag Elon into donating (that would be too politicizing as you say, and we wouldn’t want to alienate Elon who is already fairly EA-aligned in his own unique way), but rather to publish a bunch of “well, actually...” type posts explaining how we think six billion dollars could most effectively be spent to reduce human suffering. Hopefully the effect would be to help raise the profile of EA while raising the sophistication / sanity level of the surrounding conversation at the same time.
I mostly agree with you, but I think that “raising the sophistication” here might be harder than most people think, and I strongly believe our current media environment (plus social networks) is not conducive to such sophistication.
Plus, I was intrigued by this sentence:
I was wondering what made you say this, then I googled it up a bit, and decided to share some references, if anyone else ever needs to justify such a claim:
Elon Musk To Address ‘Nerd Altruists’ At Google HQ
Dear Elon Musk: Here’s how you should donate your money
Why I Stan Elon Musk
But notice we now apparently agree that Elon Musk is well aware of EA-thinking, so I’m not sure if there’s any additional value in getting Musk’s attention to EA—which makes me even more suspicious about what could be our benefit from stepping into this “6 bn” debate.
Btw, NYT (a little late for the fray) has called Musk’s debate with WFP an example of Trolling Philantrhopy. But the text is not as bad as the title.
And WFP has published a report describing how they would spend the $6.6bn. As I mentioned above, the goal is to save 42 mi people from hunger, not saving 42 mi—i.e., I don’t think all of them would die this year (also, some of the survivors will die next year even if assisted, so WFP just bought them another year). I’d really like to see a rough napkin CBA estimating how many lives (= aprox. 30 QALY) are saved by these programs.