My understanding of this (blog) post is a restating of the drowning child thought experiment in OP's voice, with their confident personal writing style. I'm not certain about their intentions behind the article.
In terms using the drowning child argument in general, particularly when explaining what is EA to people who have never heard it before, I do still think it's useful; people understand the general meaning behind it even when only half-explained in 45 seconds by non-philsophers.
The key facts seem to be that extraordinarily large amount of money that was previously going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (from Buffet's 2006 letter), which has a good track record, is now going to 3 of Buffet's relatively unknown children (compared to the Foundation) for the vague purpose of "help people". There's a lot of uncertainty and potential for less effective causes; we don't really know what these 3 people are going to agree on to donate. How can you persuade 3 strangers with ~$130b to donate to different causes, especially when they already have their own causes and when other charities (at least in the US) are going to be looking at them? Someone else will have to think about that one.
This was actually helpful, because the visual representation I had before of an 'overhang' was of a cliff overhang (which I think has more of the 'absolute', static, fixed feel to it). This visual representation of the two sides centred around a middle point made it more clearly dynamic in my mind.
My understanding of this (blog) post is a restating of the drowning child thought experiment in OP's voice, with their confident personal writing style. I'm not certain about their intentions behind the article.
In terms using the drowning child argument in general, particularly when explaining what is EA to people who have never heard it before, I do still think it's useful; people understand the general meaning behind it even when only half-explained in 45 seconds by non-philsophers.
The key facts seem to be that extraordinarily large amount of money that was previously going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (from Buffet's 2006 letter), which has a good track record, is now going to 3 of Buffet's relatively unknown children (compared to the Foundation) for the vague purpose of "help people". There's a lot of uncertainty and potential for less effective causes; we don't really know what these 3 people are going to agree on to donate. How can you persuade 3 strangers with ~$130b to donate to different causes, especially when they already have their own causes and when other charities (at least in the US) are going to be looking at them? Someone else will have to think about that one.
I liked this as a clear and concise breakdown of an interesting and relevant topic that I had heard of, but not known about.
This was actually helpful, because the visual representation I had before of an 'overhang' was of a cliff overhang (which I think has more of the 'absolute', static, fixed feel to it). This visual representation of the two sides centred around a middle point made it more clearly dynamic in my mind.
A way to see what you have previously voted on with karma.