If you don’t typically engage with politics/government, this is the time to do so. If you are American and/or based in the U.S., reaching out to lawmakers, supporting organizations that are mobilizing on this issue, and helping amplify the urgency of this crisis can make a difference.
Why this matters:
1. Millions of lives are at stake
2. Decades of progress, and prior investment, in global health and wellbeing are at risk
3. Government funding multiplies the impact of philanthropy
Where things stand today (February 27, 2025)
The Trump Administration’s foreign aid freeze has taken a catastrophic turn: rather than complying with a court order to restart paused funding, they have chosen to terminate more than 90% of all USAID grants and contracts. This stunningly reckless decision comes just 30 days into a supposed 90-day review of foreign aid. This will cause a devastating loss of life.
Even beyond the immediate deaths, the long-term consequences are dire. Many of these programs rely on supply chains, health worker training, and community trust that have taken years to build, and which have already been harmed by U.S. actions in recent weeks. Further disruptions will actively unravel decades of health infrastructure development in low-income countries. While some funding may theoretically remain available, the reality is grim: the main USAID payment system remains offline and most staff capable of restarting programs have been laid off.
Many people don’t believe these terminations were carried out legally. But NGOs and implementing partners are on the brink of bankruptcy and insolvency because the government has not paid them for work completed months ago and is withholding funding for ongoing work (including not transferring funds and not giving access to drawdowns of lines of credit, as is typical for some awards).
We are facing a sweeping and permanent shutdown of many of the most cost-effective global health and development programs in existence that sa
I'm not sure this is true.
Even though I disagree with Caplan on x-risks, animal rights, mental illness, free will, and a few other things, I ultimately don't think it's necessarily suspicious for him to hold the most convenient view on a broad range of topics. One can imagine two different ways of forming an ideology:
- The first way is to come up with an ideology a priori, and then interpret facts about the world in light of the ideology you've chosen. People who do this are prone to ideological biases since they're evaluating facts based partly on whether they're consistent with the
... (read more)The framing of this does indeed sound like an accusation, and I kind of agree with Matthew Barnett that if you actually asked for "comment on the general trend", Caplan would just respond that he thinks he's right on all those things and that libertarianism is simply a good ideological lens.
But I totally agree that it would be great to ask for "examples of views he holds that are most inconvenient for his politics" -- this seems like a generally interesting/underrated interview question!
Forgot mental illness, which again is suspiciously convenient, and maybe on the lower end of the plausibility spectrum among his views.