The expected utility could potentially be extremely negative. If they were to suck enough as a fighter, they’d rapidly become casualties and thus liabilities. It could be especially bad if they were incapacitated at a time when their fellow fighters needed someone to have their back or a crisis when defence is needed and lives are on the line, especially civilian lives. The risk is not only of someone who may never have held a gun but also someone who is facing down tanks.
I know someone who said their mom might go volunteer in Poland to help with humanitarian relief for refugees flooding into the country. That’s one example of how one can volunteer on the ground without risking such an extremely negative outcome. There are already conversations in EA about identifying and evaluating the potentially best opportunities for marginal donations. Checking out those and your contacts donating to those could also easily prove to be much more valuable than them going over themselves to Ukraine to fight.
The expected utility could potentially be extremely negative. If they were to suck enough as a fighter, they’d rapidly become casualties and thus liabilities. It could be especially bad if they were incapacitated at a time when their fellow fighters needed someone to have their back or a crisis when defence is needed and lives are on the line, especially civilian lives. The risk is not only of someone who may never have held a gun but also someone who is facing down tanks.
I know someone who said their mom might go volunteer in Poland to help with humanitarian relief for refugees flooding into the country. That’s one example of how one can volunteer on the ground without risking such an extremely negative outcome. There are already conversations in EA about identifying and evaluating the potentially best opportunities for marginal donations. Checking out those and your contacts donating to those could also easily prove to be much more valuable than them going over themselves to Ukraine to fight.