Tag Archives: charity

[GUEST POST] The International Refugee Assistance Project

[This is a guest post by Elizabeth Van Nostrand of Aceso Under Glass.] How do you judge the effectiveness of preparing for something that might never happen? Consider emergency room capacity; if you have enough space and staff to deal … Continue reading

The Price Of Glee In China

[Epistemic status: Overly simplistic treatment of a horrifyingly complex topic; I can only hope I haven’t missed enough to completely embarrass myself] I. Noah Smith reviews recent economic research suggesting that globalization was a net harm to working class people … Continue reading

Slow But Steady

I saw this on Giving What We Can and was so delighted I wanted to repost it here. Source is The effect of malaria control on plasmodium falciparum in Africa between 2000 and 2015 in Nature: GWWC comments: The reduction … Continue reading

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Vegetarianism for Meat-Eaters

[Content warning: discussion of animal suffering. If you don’t care about animal suffering, this post is probably not for you. There is no reason to read it anyway and loudly complain in the comments.] Brian Kateman on QZ.com writes that … Continue reading

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Beware Systemic Change

[Epistemic status/edit: After reading comments, no longer sure I agree with Part I. Part II still seems right but possibly a cost that can be outweighed by other factors. I continued to be worried about this without necessarily thinking it … Continue reading

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Stop Adding Zeroes

Dylan Matthews writes a critique of effective altruism. There is much to challenge in it, and some has already been challenged by people like Ryan Carey. Perhaps I will go into it at more length later. But for now I … Continue reading

Effective Altruists: Not As Mentally Ill As You Think

During my recent meetings with effective altruist groups here, I kept hearing the theory that effective altruism selects for people with mental disorders. The theory is that people with a lot of depression, anxiety, and self-hatred turn to effective altruism … Continue reading

A Series Of Unprincipled Exceptions

The more consistently one attempts to adhere to an ideology, the more one's sanity becomes a series of unprincipled exceptions. — graaaaaagh (@graaaaaagh) February 5, 2015 Meeting with a large group of effective altruists can be a philosophically disconcerting experience, … Continue reading

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Nobody Is Perfect, Everything Is Commensurable

I. Recently spotted on Tumblr: “This is going to be an unpopular opinion but I see stuff about ppl not wanting to reblog ferguson things and awareness around the world because they do not want negativity in their life plus … Continue reading

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Ozy vs. Scott on Charity Baskets

I have invited Ozy to post to Slate Star Codex. I ended up disagreeing with their first post, so I’m going to include it along with my rebuttal. Ozy: A man goes up to a stockbroker and says, “You guys … Continue reading

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