NickLaing
Bio
Participation1
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.
How I can help others
Understanding the NGO industrial complex, and how aid really works (or doesn't) in Northern Uganda
Global health knowledge
Posts 23
Comments1415
I agree its problematic, but I think it is better to have it rather than not. Personally I like the separation as it helps my brain to organise the topics, and I feel like community posts still get plenty of attention. You may well be right that CEA is biased (its hard not to be) and the criteria could be
made clearer. I'm also not sure community posts get less attention (forum team can tell me). Some might healthy Karmas on current community posts!
I did poorly on your test, but those are the hard cases you chose. Generally in life its not best to make sweeping decisions based on rare/hard cases.
Yeah I find that situations really tough. We have a pit toilet here with thousands of flies. I poison them sporadically and I watch thousands of them writhe and slowly sie.
Under my current worldview in theory I think the probability of their sentience is too low for me to worry, but it doesn't feel great...
Thanks @katriel yes that's true nice one. I've seen a lot of programs from Village enterprise and others along those lines here in Uganda. In most cases I would have thought cash transfers or agricultural inputs could substitute for animals in this case without much fuss (there's research supporting all of these I think). You're right most probably involve livestock, but many don't.
Also controversially here, in these situations I often think animals kept in village homes in these kind of programs have net positive lives. Many here will disagree.
I think there is a chance they would hit GiveWell's bar.
In addition to the other great ideas...
I think there's great value in being part of a giving group - either an official fundraising circle or just with 3 or 4 friends can be a real morale and accountability boost. Maybe meet up every quarter physically or online and share your giving plans. I even know a couple of families that talk around the dinner table every month about where they will give their money.
Its telling to me that this has been the approach of many high-impact people in the past. Will McKaskill formed a giving group at Oxford very early in EA days. The Clapham sect in the 1800s would regularly meet in a pub partially to decide where to put their resources (Anti-Slavery/Prison reform/Animal welfare)
A few individuals can stay motivated to give lots over long periods, but I think the majority of people (myself VERY MUCH included) really struggle to manage alone - and there's no shame in that. Even many who can manage giving without a community could benefit from one.
I also think us that do direct work should be more willing to tell the odd individual story of people that are helped by our work, and through those that give the money. EA is rightly allergic to anecdotes as they are the lowest form of evidence, but if we tell the odd story to help motivate people to give rather than to demonstrate impact I think it can do more good than harm. Obviously this isn't "see or engage the person in front of you" but its a bit closer at least.
I feel like this does update me towards a welfare state to some degree. The correlation between welfare states and poorer people doing better (in rich countries) seems strong to overwhelming.
Then the idea of UBI came in, which might have been better than a welfare state (I was a believer :( ). Now the evidence shows that it's clearly not.
So I'm back to thinking that the welfare state is the best option for rich countries.
I don't think i agree with this general principle. I think there are few serious requests for extra beurocracy here on the forum and they can probably be assessed one by one on merit?
If the requests were overwhelming then maybe I'd agree
Bit I'm not a libertarian ;)