$13K per escapee is actually pretty impressive for a charity in the developed world. (If we could rescue all 25 million North Koreans for that low price, it would cost only 20% of one year of South Korea’s GDP! But of course we could not really do this… IRL there would be sharply diminishing marginal returns to attempting the rescue of many more people.)
I would expect that the biggest charitable gains related to North Korea would probably be found among “hits-based giving” strategies devoted to various tail-risk scenarios that could play out:
Working for the peaceful reunification of the peninsula under a benevolent, liberal government.
Preparing for the inevitable influx of refugees and economic shock (a la German unification) that would impact South Korea and China in the aftermath of anything from a best-case reunification to a total collapse of the North Korean government.
Trying to support resistance or reform efforts within North Korea.
Trying to lobby the North Korea policy of relevant powers: SK, USA, China, Russia, Japan, etc.
Preparing to mitigate the humanitarian catastrophe that would ensue if a hot war ever occurred (perhaps advocating that the South Korean government construct more civilian bomb shelters, stockpile more food and medical supplies, etc).
Lots of organizations in South Korea (including the government/military) probably already do work in many of these areas. But there are probably some scenarios that are relatively neglected, considering their probability & impact.
On the other hand, like the Israel/Palestine situation, North Korea is a famously intractable diplomatic puzzle, without any obvious no-brainer solutions. The actors with the most power to dictate the situation (North Korea itself, followed perhaps by China) are pretty opaque in their inner workings, and probably beyond the power of EA to easily influence. That leaves all the more-tractable options in a stance where they are basically watching, waiting, and hoping that they will be well-positioned to help when whatever happens, finally happens.
I think it’s worth exploring those other options further.
Two things to note, though:
The evidence base for such work is likely to be far worse (i.e. there would be little feedback and precedent to go on), and someone sufficiently skeptical might discount them based on priors. I think this is part of what favours GiveWell-recommended charities. That being said, I don’t expect RCTs for rescuing North Koreans, either, so I expect this to fall in-between in terms of strength of evidence.
I think similar arguments also suggest moving on from GiveWell’s recommended charities. This isn’t meant to undermine your comparison, but rather to point out that these kinds of comparisons would have implications for those who support GiveWell recommended charities, too.
Definitely; good point—I am sort of just deploying the generic longtermist argument, with all the advantages and drawbacks that brings.
I wonder if you could actually build up a bit of an evidence base from historical case studies?? There’s a long history of trying to help people escape oppressive regimes: slaves in the American south, Jewish people during WW2, East Berliners and other refugees of communism. It might be interesting to do a historical survey and try to analyze what interventions did the most good for people in those situations. (Spreading information, helping individual people escape, supporting internal resistance or reform, lobbying your own country’s policy towards the problematic regime, fighting the full-scale war.) Obviously the situations are very different from each other, but it might turn out helpful. Although for sheer cost-effectiveness, it might be tough for “helping people escape totalitarian regimes” to compete with “helping refugees from very poor and violent countries immigrate to rich and stable ones”, which seems like it ought to be cheaper to do at scale.
$13K per escapee is actually pretty impressive for a charity in the developed world. (If we could rescue all 25 million North Koreans for that low price, it would cost only 20% of one year of South Korea’s GDP! But of course we could not really do this… IRL there would be sharply diminishing marginal returns to attempting the rescue of many more people.)
I would expect that the biggest charitable gains related to North Korea would probably be found among “hits-based giving” strategies devoted to various tail-risk scenarios that could play out:
Working for the peaceful reunification of the peninsula under a benevolent, liberal government.
Preparing for the inevitable influx of refugees and economic shock (a la German unification) that would impact South Korea and China in the aftermath of anything from a best-case reunification to a total collapse of the North Korean government.
Trying to support resistance or reform efforts within North Korea.
Trying to lobby the North Korea policy of relevant powers: SK, USA, China, Russia, Japan, etc.
Preparing to mitigate the humanitarian catastrophe that would ensue if a hot war ever occurred (perhaps advocating that the South Korean government construct more civilian bomb shelters, stockpile more food and medical supplies, etc).
Lots of organizations in South Korea (including the government/military) probably already do work in many of these areas. But there are probably some scenarios that are relatively neglected, considering their probability & impact.
On the other hand, like the Israel/Palestine situation, North Korea is a famously intractable diplomatic puzzle, without any obvious no-brainer solutions. The actors with the most power to dictate the situation (North Korea itself, followed perhaps by China) are pretty opaque in their inner workings, and probably beyond the power of EA to easily influence. That leaves all the more-tractable options in a stance where they are basically watching, waiting, and hoping that they will be well-positioned to help when whatever happens, finally happens.
I think it’s worth exploring those other options further.
Two things to note, though:
The evidence base for such work is likely to be far worse (i.e. there would be little feedback and precedent to go on), and someone sufficiently skeptical might discount them based on priors. I think this is part of what favours GiveWell-recommended charities. That being said, I don’t expect RCTs for rescuing North Koreans, either, so I expect this to fall in-between in terms of strength of evidence.
I think similar arguments also suggest moving on from GiveWell’s recommended charities. This isn’t meant to undermine your comparison, but rather to point out that these kinds of comparisons would have implications for those who support GiveWell recommended charities, too.
Definitely; good point—I am sort of just deploying the generic longtermist argument, with all the advantages and drawbacks that brings.
I wonder if you could actually build up a bit of an evidence base from historical case studies?? There’s a long history of trying to help people escape oppressive regimes: slaves in the American south, Jewish people during WW2, East Berliners and other refugees of communism. It might be interesting to do a historical survey and try to analyze what interventions did the most good for people in those situations. (Spreading information, helping individual people escape, supporting internal resistance or reform, lobbying your own country’s policy towards the problematic regime, fighting the full-scale war.) Obviously the situations are very different from each other, but it might turn out helpful. Although for sheer cost-effectiveness, it might be tough for “helping people escape totalitarian regimes” to compete with “helping refugees from very poor and violent countries immigrate to rich and stable ones”, which seems like it ought to be cheaper to do at scale.