I agree that there’s a “let’s think globally” type attitude among effective altruists but I’m concerned about what would actually happen if we all decided to branch out into foreign countries. Learning other cultures and systems and situations is very complicated and if one doesn’t have a good understanding of those systems, one’s attempts to help can have unintended consequences. From GiveWell’s page on “Whites in Shining Armor” [1]
“The problem is that as outsiders, we often have very poor understanding of the true dynamics behind overseas problems – and by attempting to solve problems that we understand poorly, we can make things worse.”
For example, if you’re setting up an ebola clinic in Liberia, you need to be aware that the local Liberians are willing to raid your ebola clinic and steal the bedding (These Liberians just didn’t believe in ebola!). [2] When beds that ebola patients were just laying in are removed from a clinic, this takes the ebola germs out of the confines of the clinic, too. The dangerous unintended consequence here is probably obvious: there’s an opportunity for the disease to get out of control.
I think that having global ambitions is wonderful and well-meaning but that we need to be careful to avoid the insidious cognitive bias called Dunning-Kruger effect. Having Dunning-Kruger effect means that you’re unaware of not knowing the things you don’t know, so things will tend to be more complicated than you realize. Doing work in multiple countries sounds like a wonderful ideal, but I’m concerned that the complexity involved could make this an exercize in biting off more than we can chew.
I agree that there’s a “let’s think globally” type attitude among effective altruists but I’m concerned about what would actually happen if we all decided to branch out into foreign countries. Learning other cultures and systems and situations is very complicated and if one doesn’t have a good understanding of those systems, one’s attempts to help can have unintended consequences. From GiveWell’s page on “Whites in Shining Armor” [1]
“The problem is that as outsiders, we often have very poor understanding of the true dynamics behind overseas problems – and by attempting to solve problems that we understand poorly, we can make things worse.”
For example, if you’re setting up an ebola clinic in Liberia, you need to be aware that the local Liberians are willing to raid your ebola clinic and steal the bedding (These Liberians just didn’t believe in ebola!). [2] When beds that ebola patients were just laying in are removed from a clinic, this takes the ebola germs out of the confines of the clinic, too. The dangerous unintended consequence here is probably obvious: there’s an opportunity for the disease to get out of control.
I think that having global ambitions is wonderful and well-meaning but that we need to be careful to avoid the insidious cognitive bias called Dunning-Kruger effect. Having Dunning-Kruger effect means that you’re unaware of not knowing the things you don’t know, so things will tend to be more complicated than you realize. Doing work in multiple countries sounds like a wonderful ideal, but I’m concerned that the complexity involved could make this an exercize in biting off more than we can chew.
http://blog.givewell.org/2012/04/12/how-not-to-be-a-white-in-shining-armor/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28827091