Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Metacelsus's avatar

And Harvard takes outrageous overhead rates out of donations (from EA charities) to my research. Surely they could let me use more of the money I raised, instead of taking a cut to add to their Scrooge McDuck pile.

Expand full comment
Bob smith's avatar

Controversially, I feel this outlines one of the main issues with EA. The problems you outline that could be solved aren’t just tractable, they are incredibly legible. There is a clear link between problem, cost and solution.

However, far less measurable is the output of the marginal students who can attend Harvard / the marginal lecturer they can hire etc. - through illegible means could, either themselves or via the impact on other students, produce world altering innovation that achieves far more than using mosquito nets to save people who will remain in destitute poverty.

On the spreadsheet it looks nice as 1 life saved is an easy metric but in reality its achievement is negligible in the context of what was possible.

I have absolutely no problem with this donation.

To compare run a simple thought experiment. Go back to 1800 and have a few million to donate - do you feed slaves and give them nets or do you build the Carnegie libraries, send Darwin on that ship, offer scholarships to Oxford? The former would certainly save more lives in a legible fashion but I’d contend the latter would do far more for humanity long term, including in mortality, than could ever be measured.

Expand full comment
11 more comments...

No posts