Confused by the downvotes. People here want me to say yes??
adamaero
Karma: −17
What do you mean? There would be a net gain from half the rent/mortgage alone.
Initial costs
Traveling to see them in their country ($1k+)
Citizenship application fees and paperwork ($1.2k+)
Grocery expenses and transient living expenses
Potential cost
University tuition (likely)
Medical bills (unlikely)
---
Monetary gains
Shared housing expenses (e.g., rent)
Shared grocery expenses
Other gains
Time and effort lost in the dating game: not having to date around (most partners want children, so clearly defining that upfront)
Shared cooking of meals (saves time to interleave him/her cooking or just a better and more fun use of time cooking together)
Social aspect for single isolated people in rural areas
Long-term personal gains:
Higher paying shared income
E.g., 40k (net) annually and roughly 1.5M (net) lifetime
Short and long-term altruistic gains:
Remittance to their family (potentially)
E2G of combined income
Conclusion
It may depend on the man or woman looking for their respective life partner. After all, they can divorce and separate just like traditional couples. Although, it would make sense for Western paired international couples to have a significantly lower divorce rate.
Since asking this question, I’ve seen the huge stigma associated with international marriages. It’s clear why international couples cover up how they met. For the man seeking a wife, people assume something is wrong with him: Why not local women?
Therein lies the problem with traditional dating. Most people, the status quo, want to own a nice car, a big house, fill it with bab(ies) and golden retriever from a puppy mill. What about app dating, match.com, chemistry.com, etc—Don’t they solve the not wanting children dilemma?
Online dating is also a wash unless one lives in a populous city. And even if one eventually gets lucky with a catch, that doesn’t preclude the enormous time and effort used up finding them. Contemporary dating is just highly inefficient.
The worst case scenario of an international marriage is helping them through their university education, and them high tailing it outta there once they attain citizenship. The worse case of a traditional marriage is basically the same thing except with the added negative of playing the dating game.
Therefore, an international marriage could be a worthwhile endeavor.
Why no?
No, not just to obtain residence.
I had high hopes for this post...and was disappointed. I don’t think getting roommates or changing roommates is a cure for loneliness for the majority of adults. If I wrote a similar post, instead, I’d discuss various forms of **meditation**. Additionally, I’d mention how to find friends in new places (not necessarily roommates as I don’t base my room/housing on the who—but the where).
Even then, since most people are looking for a life partner, the better way to reduce loneliness is to meet potential suitors. So then one more prospective route is how to meet, generally, single people. Colloquially, at least in the US, this means going to bars or “day gaming.”
It would be better if you started with, “Perhaps suffering matters more than [death].”
Also, see these:
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism “never be born in the first place”
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_utilitarianism “given their massive population”
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature ~ facile: “reducing wild-animal populations”
Maybe it’s just me, but when you say “my ideas” it sounds as though you’re going to put forth some original idea/perspective. None of these ideas are remotely original. Additionally, why use a Google Doc? Is this for a class? Do you want suggestions?
[Adam and Tilda turn to leave the room]
HM: Adam. Listen to me. For the sake of my grandson, if not your own. There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive. If you join them, you and your entire family will be shunned. At best, you exist as pariah, to be spat on and beaten. At worst, lynched or crucified.
(At the same time in year 2144 we see Sonmi being led to her execution, watched by a crowd which includes Mephi, she smiles with a tear rolling down her face as the device that kills fabricants is placed to her head, the metal bolt released killing her instantly as it goes through her head)
HM: And for what? For what? No matter what you do, it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.
Adam Ewing: What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?
[Adam and Tilda leave the room] ~ Cloud Atlas
“Virtually all poverty reduction comes from economic growth and migration–not [...] philanthropy.”
Thousands of dollars to prevent one person from getting Malaria (due to an AMF bednet) is enough for me. Sure, it’s a drop in the bucket—so what?
Most philanthropists aren’t asking themselves, what’s the absolute most effective anti-poverty force in the world? They’re thinking like economists, on the margin. What’s the greatest marginal benefit for the world that I can get in exchange for my donation? The fact that most poverty reduction is coming from economic growth and migration could indicate that other areas are being neglected, and thus offer more promising opportunities for an individual donor. Bednets for malaria prevention seem like a clear example of this.
Jason H
Should individuals be thought of as a macroeconomic force?
Should single charities?
What, exactly, are we marketing?
Sacrifice: not so small as to feel meaningless and not so extreme as to be unreasonable.
E.g., not donating a couple cents every century and not reducing oneself to poverty or martyrdom.
GiveWell (1)
Animal Charity Evaluators (2)
Who are we marketing it to?
Various individuals who have extra money, and are not caught up buying the next phone and bigger car*:
(1) Empathetic liberals (I guess), those who haven’t been rich all their life, altruists, etc.
Not hard conservatives, not those who haven’t given others a second thought, not rationalists.
(2) veg*ans, and others I don’t know how to categorize specifically...
Who will be doing the marketing?
Almost all effective altruists except those who are CEOs of non-EA based orgs. In other words, those who are not forever swamped in work (or certain specific problems). Should all EAs? No, not really. Some know too little, and some convey the message poorly.
Where will (audience) ultimately buy the product?
The “beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that produce effective giving behavior” should not be thought of as something to hard sell. It should be sometimes thought as bringing simple awareness, and building a dialogue with others.
“not going to waste it on a big house, a new car every year and a bunch of friends who want a big house and a new car every year.”—Larry (Bill Murray) The Razor’s Edge 1984 movie ~ 1944 book.
Related Research
https://www.nber.org/papers/w20047.pdf#page=13
We posit that altruistic donors are more driven by the actual impact of their donation, and thus information to reinforce or enhance perceived impacts will drive higher donations. On the other hand, for warm glow donors, information on impacts may actually deter giving [because it’s not emotionally based]. This distinction is much along the lines of Kahneman (2003), in which System I decisions (peripheral decisions which use intuition and mere reaction, but no deliberation) are “warm glow” decisions, and System II decisions (deliberative decisions requiring conscious reasoning and thought) are “altruism” decisions.
Part of my origin story is here: Doing vs Talking at EA Events.
I wrote my full origin story somewhere on Quora. In a nutshell, I didn’t see everyone’s live as having much of any meaning. I didn’t see my life as meaningful. I tried thinking about what what I will eventually do, work wise. But I couldn’t think of what that would be. I wanted to start working towards being an expert at whatever work that was to be. And so, I figured in my preteen years, that I really didn’t have a purpose.
Long story short, as an auxiliary sort of life, I decided to live for others. Again, temporarily I would live for the worst off people. Their circumstances had to be much worse. I didn’t know the word “poverty” at the time, but that was just it. I knew I could live to help at least one of those people. That would make all the difference: Even in a life devoid of meaning, I could make some sort of impact for at least one person at the opposite end of the spectrum—maybe even not directly (face-to-face). Somehow.
In high school, in about 2012, I started looking into how to best combat poverty. Since then, I’ve learned the difference between relative and absolute poverty, signed the GWWC pledge and almost donated a kidney. I will soon be Earning to Give. That’s all I truly want to do. I follow Habermas’s discourse ethics as a systematic theory; I am a deontologist.
I wish I knew some stories about specific people in poverty. I recall a few from memory, but the detail is lacking. I recall something about this woman purchasing rice, kilos, and...
Diction and pronouns have tone (e.g., “you’re reinforcing” vs a more modest “that could reinforce”). With that, expressing certainty, about predictions (e.g., “whenever a group of people”) is another way I saw the original comment as harsh—unless you’re an expert in the field (and a relevant study would help too). I, for one, am no anthropologist nor sociologist.
I’m not debating if here. You asked how, and I quoted the statements I saw as the most harsh + most questionable. [I’m trying to say this lightly. Instead I could have made that last bit, ”
furthest from the truth”. But I didn’t, because I’m trying to demonstrate. (And that’s not what I really mean anyway.)] I never said you are wrong about _ _ _ _ _. I said, it may not be true; it may be true.
You seem to still think the original comment was not harsher than necessary by your own definition of tone. Either way, I’m guessing Mrs. Wise gave you much less confusing pointers with her PM.
They were examples to how I saw how your post as “harsher than necessary”. You’ve diluted these mere examples into a frivolous debate. If you believe you were not harsh at all, then believe what you want to believe.
@kbog: Most of your responses with respect to my reply do not make sense. Example, EA Chicago posts their events on the Facebook page. I don’t live in Chicago...(simple as that)
The physics stack exchange doesn’t try to exclude engineers
~ completely missed the point. Additionally, the analogy is fine. There is seldom such a thing as an absolute analogy. With that, it doesn’t follow that somehow the analogy is wrong related to these elusively implicit misconceptions by EAs about EAs.
So to sum up, you’re reading in way too far to what I wrote originally. I was answering your question related to why your first reply was “harsher than necessary”.
“so it will be a destructive feedback loop” ~ not necessarily
“you’re reinforcing an assumption that they can’t get along” ~ unlikely
“whenever a group of people [...] extreme end of the spectrum, who are the most closed-minded and intolerant” ~ very big presumptions
I personally think this chat is a great idea. Too many times on Facebook groups, I have to see local events that I can’t attend. Too many times I see EA posts that have no relevance to my involvement in EA. That doesn’t mean I’m closed-minded. Most EAs, picking animal suffering or global poverty, are the most open-minded people in my opinion.
Perhaps think about it like the difference between the Physics Stack Exchange chat and the Electrical Engineering (EE) Stack Exchange chat. They’re very close to the same. EE is based in physics obviously. But they’re separate.
Anyway, my two cents.
Is the other Discord not publicly viewable? I’ve never heard of it.
I do not understand.
quite a bit of danger in rapid movement growth of attracting people who might dilute the EA movement and impair the building of good infrastructure down the road (see this video* and paper**).
Things I do get: Building a movement with ignorant people may not be good. But becoming veg*an or signing the GWWC pledge and following through is all it really takes. Every EA doesn’t have to be super knowledgeable.
Users on a website is one thing. For example, each StackExchange needs a healthy balance of participants for good questions and equally good answers. But effective giving is really all I see that matters.
Sure, it’s not directly EA. But so what? Effective giving is related to EA. It doesn’t have to be EA. Or maybe I just didn’t read closely enough.
Note to self:
*Movement Development—Kerry Vaughan—EA Global 2015
**How valuable is movement growth?
I hope it has a locked top title bar of “EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM FORUM” so it shows what I’m looking at to other people (even when scrolling down the page).
One doesn’t need studies to determine which charities have negative effects. (That’s not true for the reverse obviously.)
Play Pump is the archetype. There are plenty others, especially in Haiti.
Gleb_T, go on GuideStar. If you’re truly interested in finding the charities with negative effects, there are transparent charities that do more harm then good. Additionally, some have enormous administrative/advertising fees, a vice in itself. I was reading a 990 Form for a charity in Florida with over 85% put to advertising!
I’m about to put on a Giving Game for passerbyers in the middle of a student center building. AKA Speed Giving game at a tabling booth. It will go on for however long my schedule will allow. This will be 3-4 hours at a time. (I am the only explicit-EA at my uni.)
I plan on having a stack of $2 bills and three fish bowls for three different charities. Not many students will participate. (I’ve volunteered for the Engineers Without Borders booth in the same place, and few stop to see our stand. They are mainly going downstairs to eat.)
From what I’ve read about Giving Games, the majority of people choose the effective charities. Although, I was told at my one and only EA meetup, that I could do two or three effective charities—just having them be different cause areas. This is what I plan to do. Do you see advantages of putting, say, the Make-A-Wish Foundation in there as a choice? To me it’s just common sense to choose the stringently evaluated charities over non-transparent, little traction, etc—type charities.
And so I don’t want to insult other people’s intelligence. The results of Giving Games with an “ineffective” charity, that I’ve read, show that the majority of people pick the more effective charities. It seems the “bad” charity is there as a token. It appears the cause-area style of Giving Game is better (than winner-takes-all, tiered or proportional games for university students).
It’s the same question for an international marriage with a groom instead of a bride.