I’m a doctor working towards the dream that every human will have access to high quality healthcare. I’m a medic and director of OneDay Health, which has launched 53 simple but comprehensive nurse-led health centers in remote rural Ugandan Villages. A huge thanks to the EA Cambridge student community in 2018 for helping me realise that I could do more good by focusing on providing healthcare in remote places.
NickLaing
Karma: 11,734
yep that’s true! was just sharing EA related texts i like but you’re right doesn’t really fit the description.
i think this is a good idea, but perhaps better excecutrd even by “non mental health” people. if your expertise is in psychotherapy why ditch that enormous competitive advantage?
i also think the evidence base on this stuff isn’t yet quite there? but I’m not up to date...
This was a beautiful episode, with the compassion and thought from GiveWell staff coming through so well! great job!
thanks heaps. Happy someone appreciated the numerous attempted lolz 😅.
strangers drowning, and Scout mindset
the sauce?
hey man. From my perspective I’m at least as impressed by small earners who give high percentages, although obviously there are good utility arguments against this being the most important thing. I’ll let a wiser person explain why ;)
“Sitting across from the offering box, he was observing how the crowd tossed money in for the collection. Many of the rich were making large contributions. One poor widow came up and put in two small coins—a measly two cents. Jesus called his disciples over and said, “The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford—she gave her all”
And i would count that 10k bet why not?
I Donate because I am Christian
Just wanted to say here is at least one EA who agrees with “I don’t think I’m just lucky to have what I have, I also think it’s not rightfully mine, and I ought to try to correct those injustices by giving.” In the EA GHD scene at least, I think similar sentiments aren’t that rare, but perhaps you haven’t met too many who think along those lines.
I love this sentiment and am happy to see it here on the forum. I will say though that (depending on our personality type) it can be unhelpful to dwell on this too much, or it can lead to guilt/paralysis which can stop us actually improve said injustice....I work on a low salary and agree that can be a great way to go for periods of time. I do agree that 10% of a low salary can be tricky, but on the other hand 10% of a low salary ain’t that much hahaha
thanks for this bold and important move to give as a student! If you can build habits now it will make it so much easy when the money starts flowing in. I always considered myself “cash strapped” as a student but really i would have been better off getting into the habit of donating monthly like you are. Amazing job!
I think giving circles like those that AIM run are a great option in this kind of case. They are a great way to build understanding around giving, while being well supported and also providing accountability
I also think lots of people will make statements along the lines of “EA is no longer the default option for smart people” as an excuse/copout for not giving at all, when really the issue is just value drift and greed catching up with them. If you don’t want to give “EA style” that’s great, as long as you’ve got another plan where to give it.
I think cross cause-area comparisons are great to consider, but cross cause-area rankings are a bit absurd given how big the error bars are around future stuff and animal welfare calculations. I don’t mind someone making a ranking list as an interesting exercise that the odd person are going to defer to, but more realistically people are going to anchor on one cause area or another. At least have within-cause rankings before you start cross-cause ranking.
People within the field say they don’t even want to do cost-effectiveness analysis within AI safety charities (I feel they could make a bit more of an effort). How on earth then will you do it cross-cause?
GiveWell and HLI basically rank global health/Dev charities. If you’re that keen on rankings, why not start by making an animal welfare and AI safety rank list first, then if people take that seriously perhaps you can start cross-cause ranking with non-absurdity
what a wonderful reply...
“Because of this difference, it’s unclear to us whether a 1% income increase for 40 years should produce the same wellbeing benefit as a 40% increase for one year.” for sure it’s unclear, but I would on a 1 percent income increase over 40 years making a bigger difference to well-being than 40 percent over 1 year. very low confidence though it’s just a hunch.
the problem is we’re really unlikely to ever be able to determine that because we won’t be able to statistically pick out any less than say a 5 percent yearly increase with most study sample sizes…
i don’t trust any take which is that confident that any industry is a Bubble. Even the best economists are terrible at predicting bubbles and the market is not completely useless at predicting things either.
i disagree (weakly) because i think there are few USAID funded programs that were very cost effective. GiveWell disagrees so I’m probably wrong as they have done far more research.
I think this is an important comment, to remind those who do think this is a particularly high impact time to give.
From your perspective might be good at least that strategic voting from global health folks had got AMF up there lol.
Wow feels like strategic voting is getting real.
i think this kind of data is important and interesting, but my point was something a bit different. Only by trying to enact some of this stuff will we really find out the extent of resistance and backlash.
I’ve really appreciated comments and reflections from @Yarrow Bouchard 🔸 and I think in his case at least this does feel a bit unfair. Its good to encourage new people on the forum, unless they are posting particularly egrarious thing which I don’t think he has been.
Why would this be illegal?
The more I think about it, the less paradoxical it seems. I don’t think those two are in conflict so much. I think we absolutely are compelled to give, but compelled from “Its the right and best thing to do” perspective, not from a “Do it even if you hate-it-kicking-and-screaming” perspective.
I think giving springing on a personal/heart level from gratitiude, but the underlying principle being that hey, this is the right/correct thing to do might actually combine without much paradox. I think if you give because you begrudgingly feel obliged you might be better off not doing it and checking yo heart first?