I found effective altruism in July 2021. Read everything I could, learned as much as I could. Pediatrician working in low resource settings, now completed Masters in global health policy, because I wanted to help more people.
LiaH
Karma: 140
Thanks for your reply; I may be naive, but I think even engaging in the conversation is a start. Even by replying to this post helps it to be seen and considered.
I think that like you, every ‘ordinary person’ downplays their role. Human rights movements, including civil rights, anti-apartheid, and suffrage all happened because of actions of ordinary people. Sure, by yourself you may not have massive influence, but if you share with your social group, your friends and family may pick it up and share with their social group. I agree that time and energy aren’t infinite—I don’t see myself having the time to join one of the street demonstrations, for example, but retweeting pleas for a ceasefire takes seconds.
For what it’s worth, I also take on board the moral force, and feel generally helpless. It is the reason why I am going to these various forums to which I belong, to try and gain traction. Sharing, upvoting, and commenting on this post would also help, as cheesy as the ask may be. Thank you
Is there any sound, rational argument against calling for a ceasefire?
Silence is complicity.
Not engaging in politics only upholds the status quo of structural power.
Thank you for your reply. I am sorry to hear about your poor personal healthcare experience.
Regarding your other points:
“Cost-effectiveness doesn’t mean only efficiency. I think when you’re trying to do the most good, ditching the use of cost-effectiveness is quite hard because what will you use instead?”
Equity. I am suggesting a paradigm shift to considering equity as the most important goal. It means spending more on those less fortunate, but sometimes cost-effectiveness and equity align. For example, Give Well donates to low income countries because it is more cost-effective, but it happens to also be a more equitable choice. The provision of primary health care for all is equitable, and is not always at odds with cost-effectiveness, see the US spending on healthcare and morbidity and mortality outcomes vs other rich countries which have social health care. The only process by which equity is advanced is through human rights lobby, as far as I can tell.
“”Billionaire philanthropy isn’t okay, it’d be better if the masses decided what to do” and “Universal healthcare is a moral imperative” are claims which a lot of moral theories would disagree with”
I am interested to see these moral theories.
“A third critique is tractability. Isn’t it quite hard to change global political discourse, especially in Africa where most EAs do not have no connection to, and institute health as a global right and actually enforce this? This seems quite unlikely, because this would require increasing state capacity all over the global south, advancement of technologies in underdeveloped countries(if we take veil of ignorance seriously), setting effective and capable health bureucracies in countries where bureucracies tend to be home clientelistic and kleptocratic tendencies rather than effectiveness. Again, I don’t think the goal this post propose are actually tractable. This is different distributing bednets.”
I agree with this; it highlights the purpose of my post, which is to suggest EAs aim higher in their altruistic goals.
Also this report that big pharma R&D costs are vastly overblown; it is what I had suspected, now upheld by research.
Strong upvote! I came here to say something similar. One of your most compelling points is addressing the needs and wants of the intended beneficiaries, in contrast with pursuing the most economically efficient cause area. I think there is significant moral weight in ensuring people have what they want and need, which cannot be commodified.
Peter Singer has done the math, and it is possible to reduce by half global hunger and extreme poverty, with modest numbers (old article, but I just found it):
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html
While I am here, humbly, I need to ask a burning question: Your advocacy and behaviour are incongruent with respect to consumption; you consume in a degrowth pattern, but advocate for growth, why?
Thank you!!! For efficiency, I almost only read books by audio now, so as self-declared expert, I agree books read by the author are superior because the author understands the meaning, inflection, and nuance in their words. I think it added value to WWOTF.
I most recently read Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas, read by the author, and cannot help but feel moral unease about EA position in the philanthropic world right now. He makes a defensible argument for politics as the means of doing the most good.
I would be suspicious of anyone (the libertarians you describe) who claims to be protecting children by endorsing child labour.
Fair point. Although, I think I did also mean “dumbed down longtermism”. Every far longtermist threat, like engineered pandemics, AI alignment, existential risk, great power war, environmental degradation, etc, also threatens current children. Possibly regular people (non-EAs) would understand the threat better/empathize more easily if it were a threat to children vs concepts of future people.
Thank you for the informative comment. I learned two things today—“adultism”, and the difference between disenfranchised agent and patient.
I really appreciated your linked question/comment about relating abolition, suffrage, to non-human animals and future people. I agree! Do you think of my association between children and future people is a closer match?
Although I would 100% endorse increasing the agency of children and youth, I can’t help but understand adultism as less of a prejudice, and more of a matter-of-fact with respect to small children. The study you cited are youth who already have some agency, as they are capable of reading and completing a survey, rather than babies who cannot control their own limbs.
Lastly, as an ally who has interest in children, what might move you closer to lobbying for consensus on the rights of the child?
I appreciate your questions on both of these points.
Tractability—Yes, I see the senate as the roadblock, depending on the party makeup within it. Of course, lobbying state-specific-laws might be more successful, but not as comprehensive. This is the reason I am suggesting going for the big goal. It is more about universal acknowledgement of child rights as agent-less future people. Even if the senate is destined to block it, do you see the possible value in bringing child rights to the agenda, raising the issue in the news, raising public awareness, spinning the possibility US ratification as “American champions of child rights”, or any similar secondary goals?
Value of ratification—True, ratification does not directly guarantee improved child survival or welfare. It is why I am suggesting it as “hits based”. As I am sure you know, UN treaties are only as strong as the sanctions other countries choose to place on violators. If the US ratified, as a relative global power, it would carry weight in sanctions, which it cannot do now. The benefit to US children I see as a positive externality only.
The goal would be in what universal consensus represents, step one in a global value change toward the importance of future people.
As someone with interest in political interventions as EA cause areas, I am curious whether you think there is a better approach?
Thanks for pointing out where my argument lacks clarity. I can understand the confusion on the points you have made if the primary goal of ratification were benefit to US kids. I am suggesting the primary goal of US ratification is universal consensus, with the benefit to US kids as more of a positive externality.
The same is true about freeing mothers from exclusive care of children; it would not be the primary goal, but a positive externality. An example here would be in a low income country with no universal health care, a mother must make the choice between seeking and paying for health care for her sick child, versus going to work that day, feeding her other children, etc. Universal health care for children would free her from this problem. Actually, as I write, there is much to be said for improving the social protection floor in America, as well.....
You are also right in observing that ratification does not automatically save millions of kids. The reason I suggested it as a “hits based” cause area is as a first step in locking-in in value change toward protecting human rights of agent-less future people. I see it as a step-wise process:
Universal consensus on child rights
Public awareness and pressure on protection of children, greater weight for UN enforcement of child rights, acknowledgement of children as our future, etc
Other forms of improvement of child welfare, such as universal health care for children (working toward saving millions of kids)
Acknowledgement of rights for future people, and possible future treaties
With this information, how might I rephrase the original post to present it more clearly?
I agree with this entirely. I submitted a post in which I speak to this very idea, (not as clearly and pointedly as you have done):
“What I see missing, is promotion of the universal benefits of equality, altruism, and goodwill. Here I mean simple altruism, not necessarily effective altruism. Imagine if only 20% of the population worked for the greater good. Or if every person spent 20% of their time at it? Convincing more of the world population to do right by each other, the environment, animals, and the future, in whatever capacity possible, seems to me to be the best investment the EA community could make. Working at a local soup kitchen may not be the most effective/efficient altruistic pursuit, but what if everyone did something similar, and maximized their personal fit? I have trouble thinking of a downside, but am open to counterpoint ideas. ”
I am a mid-career professional, who only discovered EA a year ago, FWIW.
Is growth the best approach to maximizing the good we can do? What is the effect on the environment? How much consumption is too much? Where does this leave future generations?
What if instead low income countries were granted debt relief, so their policies were not driven by creditors? What about a global minimum wage? Or tax justice, like a universal minimum corporate tax? And what to do about climate reparations?
These ideas are not my own, they are from this podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-58-the-neoliberal-optimism-industry
Much of the challenge of measuring growth is it occurs as a country-level analysis, where the growth of global north rich countries in the last two centuries was at least partially gained on the resources and human capital of the global south, and continues, so similar growth cannot be replicated.
Therefore I would wonder if global governance policy is an important and neglected area to be considered? (I will allow that tractability may be the roadblock).
I would therefore also wonder about the EA response to “poor countries don’t need charity, they need justice”?
Their assessment seems to be three small policy spheres, rather than global health policy, which is larger in scale.
Global health policy is neglected EA-aligned work. This post is short because the attachment is long; if you read the whole article, and disagree that global health policy work is useful, I am interested to hear your reasons.
The political origins of health inequity: prospects for change
Thanks for taking the time to reply! And thanks for acknowledging that it’s a good thing to advocate for a ceasefire.
Here is my rationale for it being the best thing:
I know it is naive and simplistic to say, but war kills and peace saves lives, no matter the circumstance, parties, or reason for the conflict. If we believe that every human life is valued equally, saving the lives of even the most egregious combatants is worthwhile.
A ceasefire would mitigate further deaths in Palestine, right now. True, protests to end the conflict haven’t been effective for three quarters of a century, but I don’t understand how it is an argument for not trying to end the acute crisis, while hospitals are being shut down.
Escalation of this conflict is highly possible, in my opinion. I am sorry to repeat this part of the post, but two historically oppressed people are feeling attacked, worldwide. It is hard to play fair when you are feeling attacked, oppressed, downtrodden. It increases the risk of dehumanizing the other side, and illegal war strategies, like chemical weapons, attacks on hospitals and social infrastructure, cutting off supply lines, etc. Most worrisome, is the people who are feeling oppressed don’t just live in Palestine and Israel; the conflict runs the risk of scaling up fast. Hate crimes are already happening in America. The Biden administration is already talking of war.
Regarding time, I am only suggesting you share protests for ceasefire on social media, if you are not doing so already. This takes seconds, considerably less than the time it took you to earn the 20% of your income that you are donating (kudos to you, btw). It takes so little time, I am suggesting you can both advocate for ceasefire in addition to the good you do, without impact on you QoL.
I don’t think I am exaggerating when I suggest your efforts could help to save thousand, maybe millions. Not you alone, of course, but as I indicated in my other reply, as part of a movement. I also believe in the ripple effect—if you share your opinion on social media, people who respect and value your opinion may change their mind on the matter, and share calls for a ceasefire to their connections.
If I can summarize, seconds of your time may have both impact for thousands of people in Palestine right now, and advocating for peace might prevent WWIII. It might not, but what is the downside in trying?