I have strong downvoted as a strong disendorsement of getting involved in hot-button, highly publicized military conflicts such as this, where the sign of the donation is unclear. I think this could be slightly contributing to the risk of escalating to nuclear war, and may actually prolong the war, increasing the amount of deaths. I think it’s terrible that this is so highly upvoted and there’s no debate.
(Parenthetical update: I would definitely be in favor of people here supporting effective altruist-identifying individuals they know in Ukraine, including arming them if they need that.)
[I’m sleep-deprived so this is not well written and fairly repetitive and unstructured, apologies. I also know nothing about politics and usually follow a policy of almost never reading the news. So me writing a comment on a complex geopolitical issue is arguably ludicrous.]
I see your reasoning with these points, and agree that the sign of donating is unclear, but I also think there are counterarguments to the points you have made.
I think that effectively giving in to Putin’s threats here plausibly emboldens him and other malevolent autocrats to take over more countries in the future with impunity. Instead, perhaps the more effective approach, and the one that might have better results in the long run, might be what the West is currently doing: forming a coalition that enforces punishments on malevolent autocrats invading other countries, etc. (I do think that the US invading e.g. Iraq is sufficiently dissimilar from the current case, though I know many people disagree on this.)
(Perhaps one might think that Putin is not a malevolent autocrat. Again, I think this seems likely but I don’t provide evidence here.)
If the West does not do this, it might become clear to Putin and others that they should invade neighboring countries (e.g., China taking over Taiwan) given that there are large material incentives to doing so, and that they will not face much resistance.
Therefore, if the West does not stand up strongly to Putin now, the result might be more violence and lives lost in the long run. Also, the historic track record of appeasement when it comes to malevolent dictators has not been good. (Though it’s difficult to know the relevant counterfactuals, of course.)
A few other miscellaneous points:
I guess the big question is what the overall policy should be for dealing with situations like this? If the West gives in to Putin now, what should the response be when he invades other countries? Or when other nuclear armed nations invade other countries? If we are going to give in to any nuclear armed autocrat, that’s a quick recipe for giving over more and more territory and power to malevolent leaders, which seems very negative from a short-termist and longtermist perspective.
Overall, it’s plausible to me that every day we prolong this war might be net positive from a long-term perspective, even if more lives are lost in the short-term. First, it makes it more likely that sanctions bite hard enough and Putin has to give up. Second, a longer war will be a greater deterrent to Putin and other autocrats in the future. Last, prolonging the war plausibly weakens Putin’s and his allies power and strengthens political opposition in Russia. If Putin is succesful now, then the Russian people will update on that and more likely support future nationalistic leaders. However, if Putin fails, they might be more likely to support more conciliatory, peaceful leaders.
Generally, reducing Putin’s influence seems very valuable from a longtermist perspective since he seems to has caused a lot of harm in the past decades. For example, he plausibly helped to increase political polarization in the US, perhaps helped Trump to win the election, weakened international cooperation, etc.
Another point to keep in mind: Imagine we live in the universe where Putin is really willing to consider launching nuclear missiles over this conflict, if Ukraine is not given to him without much resistance. (If we don’t live in this universe, we don’t have to worry about his nuclear threats.) It seems to me that the Putin of this universe would also be fairly likely to invade more countries and make further nuclear threats (to which the world would have to give in again and again) giving him ever more power. The Putin of this universe would be a terrible person to give much power to.
Lastly, I agree that getting involved in hot-button issues is usually not wise (e.g., because they are too crowded) but this is not always true. For example, many EAs also became involved in COVID.
All that said, I agree that this issue is complex and fraught with uncertainty about how one should act.
If your argument about prolonging the war is correct, and I do agree with your logic around autocratic leaders being emboldened to take more land (such as China with Taiwan), I’d still argue that it’s funded enough already with enough attention to not require EA funds. If that new FTX Future Fund invested all $1B into Ukraine it will be a minority percentage of all total funds and the things that are under-funded but offer greater rewards will not be funded (because they don’t have the same level of public/international support).
I agree that this is not an especially cost-effective intervention. I was hoping to convey something else with my comment.
If that new FTX Future Fund invested all $1B into Ukraine it will be a minority percentage of all total funds
Sure, but the fact that an area has already received dozens of billions in funding is in itself not a knock-down argument. For example, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on climate change every year and hundreds of billions were spent on COVID vaccine development alone. But posts about interventions in these areas would receive much less pushback (or usually no pushback).
Overall, I think that interventions in this space are plausibly more cost-effective than the average climate change intervention discussed by EAs. (That being said, there are additional strategic and PR reasons to praise climate change as a cause area since this is one of the ideological cornerstones of EA’s main political ally.)
The main reason I wrote my comment was not to suggest that this is the most cost-effective intervention (which I agree it is not). I wanted to respond to the large number of downvotes and, if I am to be frank, my impression of the somewhat hostile tone of Dony’s comment, which made me think that many EAs think that OP’s post is clearly net negative.
In addition, I felt that arguments in favor of concessions/giving in to Putin’s threats (e.g., this post) were overrepresented on this Forum (and among EAs I know in private). I was responding more to these sentiments (and also to Dony’s claim that there is no debate). Lastly, there are also game-theoretic reasons to not advertize one’s willingness to give in to coercion.
I feel I have to start this comment with the caveat that I stand with Ukraine.
I don’t think this is a project for effective altruism for two main reasons. First, this is a highly funded area with people donating already. The World Bank has pledged billions with $350 million being sent this week. Nations are sending supplies. Musk has provided internet access. Regular people are donating money to people. What benefit is there to add additional funds in the order of perhaps millions? This could be spent in a much more productive manner. Secondly, with a rational hat on, I don’t know if extending this war is good long term. Putin has mentioned nuclear weapons, however slim the reality of that threat may be, so the thing we should be focusing on is de-escalation not escalation through funding. I’d need to be seriously persuaded that the benefit of supporting Ukraine to prolong this war is greater than the risk of Russia moving closer to nuclear war with the West.
I agree with your first point here. Looks like various nations have already committed military aid on the order of $2B to Ukraine, plus quite a lot of in-kind donations of military equipment. I’m very unsure about how elastic the supply of military equipment is at the current margin. Is it really the case that there are military supplies available that Ukraine would purchase but for lack of funds? That would surprise me.
It reminds me a bit of the early Covid days when everyone wanted to purchase PPE, but supply was bottlenecked, so donations increased prices and changed the distribution of who received the available supply.
FWIW, when I tried to view this from one of my devices I got an error message that “This post is only visible to logged-in users,” which I’d never seen before. I guess this is a new option for authors on the forum, which is good to know.
Kelsey Piper has written an excellent article on different ways to help Ukrainians, including how to donate directly to the Ukrainian military. But she wisely points out that “[s]uch donations occupy a tricky ethical and even legal area… A safer choice would be to direct money to groups that are providing medical assistance on the ground in Ukraine, like Médecins Sans Frontières or the Ukrainian Red Cross.”
I have strong downvoted as a strong disendorsement of getting involved in hot-button, highly publicized military conflicts such as this, where the sign of the donation is unclear. I think this could be slightly contributing to the risk of escalating to nuclear war, and may actually prolong the war, increasing the amount of deaths. I think it’s terrible that this is so highly upvoted and there’s no debate.
(Parenthetical update: I would definitely be in favor of people here supporting effective altruist-identifying individuals they know in Ukraine, including arming them if they need that.)
[I’m sleep-deprived so this is not well written and fairly repetitive and unstructured, apologies. I also know nothing about politics and usually follow a policy of almost never reading the news. So me writing a comment on a complex geopolitical issue is arguably ludicrous.]
I see your reasoning with these points, and agree that the sign of donating is unclear, but I also think there are counterarguments to the points you have made.
I think that effectively giving in to Putin’s threats here plausibly emboldens him and other malevolent autocrats to take over more countries in the future with impunity. Instead, perhaps the more effective approach, and the one that might have better results in the long run, might be what the West is currently doing: forming a coalition that enforces punishments on malevolent autocrats invading other countries, etc. (I do think that the US invading e.g. Iraq is sufficiently dissimilar from the current case, though I know many people disagree on this.)
(Perhaps one might think that Putin is not a malevolent autocrat. Again, I think this seems likely but I don’t provide evidence here.)
If the West does not do this, it might become clear to Putin and others that they should invade neighboring countries (e.g., China taking over Taiwan) given that there are large material incentives to doing so, and that they will not face much resistance.
Therefore, if the West does not stand up strongly to Putin now, the result might be more violence and lives lost in the long run. Also, the historic track record of appeasement when it comes to malevolent dictators has not been good. (Though it’s difficult to know the relevant counterfactuals, of course.)
A few other miscellaneous points:
I guess the big question is what the overall policy should be for dealing with situations like this? If the West gives in to Putin now, what should the response be when he invades other countries? Or when other nuclear armed nations invade other countries? If we are going to give in to any nuclear armed autocrat, that’s a quick recipe for giving over more and more territory and power to malevolent leaders, which seems very negative from a short-termist and longtermist perspective.
Overall, it’s plausible to me that every day we prolong this war might be net positive from a long-term perspective, even if more lives are lost in the short-term. First, it makes it more likely that sanctions bite hard enough and Putin has to give up. Second, a longer war will be a greater deterrent to Putin and other autocrats in the future. Last, prolonging the war plausibly weakens Putin’s and his allies power and strengthens political opposition in Russia. If Putin is succesful now, then the Russian people will update on that and more likely support future nationalistic leaders. However, if Putin fails, they might be more likely to support more conciliatory, peaceful leaders.
Generally, reducing Putin’s influence seems very valuable from a longtermist perspective since he seems to has caused a lot of harm in the past decades. For example, he plausibly helped to increase political polarization in the US, perhaps helped Trump to win the election, weakened international cooperation, etc.
Another point to keep in mind: Imagine we live in the universe where Putin is really willing to consider launching nuclear missiles over this conflict, if Ukraine is not given to him without much resistance. (If we don’t live in this universe, we don’t have to worry about his nuclear threats.) It seems to me that the Putin of this universe would also be fairly likely to invade more countries and make further nuclear threats (to which the world would have to give in again and again) giving him ever more power. The Putin of this universe would be a terrible person to give much power to.
Lastly, I agree that getting involved in hot-button issues is usually not wise (e.g., because they are too crowded) but this is not always true. For example, many EAs also became involved in COVID.
All that said, I agree that this issue is complex and fraught with uncertainty about how one should act.
If your argument about prolonging the war is correct, and I do agree with your logic around autocratic leaders being emboldened to take more land (such as China with Taiwan), I’d still argue that it’s funded enough already with enough attention to not require EA funds. If that new FTX Future Fund invested all $1B into Ukraine it will be a minority percentage of all total funds and the things that are under-funded but offer greater rewards will not be funded (because they don’t have the same level of public/international support).
I agree that this is not an especially cost-effective intervention. I was hoping to convey something else with my comment.
Sure, but the fact that an area has already received dozens of billions in funding is in itself not a knock-down argument. For example, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on climate change every year and hundreds of billions were spent on COVID vaccine development alone. But posts about interventions in these areas would receive much less pushback (or usually no pushback).
Overall, I think that interventions in this space are plausibly more cost-effective than the average climate change intervention discussed by EAs. (That being said, there are additional strategic and PR reasons to praise climate change as a cause area since this is one of the ideological cornerstones of EA’s main political ally.)
The main reason I wrote my comment was not to suggest that this is the most cost-effective intervention (which I agree it is not). I wanted to respond to the large number of downvotes and, if I am to be frank, my impression of the somewhat hostile tone of Dony’s comment, which made me think that many EAs think that OP’s post is clearly net negative.
In addition, I felt that arguments in favor of concessions/giving in to Putin’s threats (e.g., this post) were overrepresented on this Forum (and among EAs I know in private). I was responding more to these sentiments (and also to Dony’s claim that there is no debate). Lastly, there are also game-theoretic reasons to not advertize one’s willingness to give in to coercion.
I feel I have to start this comment with the caveat that I stand with Ukraine.
I don’t think this is a project for effective altruism for two main reasons. First, this is a highly funded area with people donating already. The World Bank has pledged billions with $350 million being sent this week. Nations are sending supplies. Musk has provided internet access. Regular people are donating money to people. What benefit is there to add additional funds in the order of perhaps millions? This could be spent in a much more productive manner. Secondly, with a rational hat on, I don’t know if extending this war is good long term. Putin has mentioned nuclear weapons, however slim the reality of that threat may be, so the thing we should be focusing on is de-escalation not escalation through funding. I’d need to be seriously persuaded that the benefit of supporting Ukraine to prolong this war is greater than the risk of Russia moving closer to nuclear war with the West.
I agree with your first point here. Looks like various nations have already committed military aid on the order of $2B to Ukraine, plus quite a lot of in-kind donations of military equipment. I’m very unsure about how elastic the supply of military equipment is at the current margin. Is it really the case that there are military supplies available that Ukraine would purchase but for lack of funds? That would surprise me.
It reminds me a bit of the early Covid days when everyone wanted to purchase PPE, but supply was bottlenecked, so donations increased prices and changed the distribution of who received the available supply.
I can vouch that the author is an EA with standing in the community.
Should this be posted on a public forum?
FWIW, when I tried to view this from one of my devices I got an error message that “This post is only visible to logged-in users,” which I’d never seen before. I guess this is a new option for authors on the forum, which is good to know.
Oh that is good to know, I think that significantly reduces reputation risk to EA vs it being completely publicly accessible.
The text was vetted by the group organiser before I published it.
Kelsey Piper has written an excellent article on different ways to help Ukrainians, including how to donate directly to the Ukrainian military. But she wisely points out that “[s]uch donations occupy a tricky ethical and even legal area… A safer choice would be to direct money to groups that are providing medical assistance on the ground in Ukraine, like Médecins Sans Frontières or the Ukrainian Red Cross.”