Lost Charity | Hacker News Reader

Lost Charity

overcomingbias.com

16 pointskeyist20 comments

This article is good background to understand Hanson's health care perspective: http://hanson.gmu.edu/feardie.pdf

Unfortunately his argument really only addresses marginal health care and shows that we may be over-cared-for and suboptimal, not that basic health-care is worthless. The effectiveness of work against polio and eradication of smallpox are perhaps the easiest examples of unqualified success.

There's a vast difference between saying that we have too much or suboptimal health care, and that hospitals are worthless.

Robin's post criticizes Grass's spending as worthless "signaling," but it seems to me to be guilty of the same thing. This post doesn't do anything to prove the claims that hospitals and academics are worthless, or that profit motive is the only way to do good.

I actually agree with many of Hanson's broader points about ways to be more effective, but classifying all charitable spending on libraries, hospitals, and universities as "pissing it away" is needlessly sensationalist.

[edited to reduce my own needless sensationalism]

I don't think he's saying that hospitals and academics are worthless, but that their current marginal worth is well below their cost. The charity didn't create hospitals in needed areas, it simply expanded an existing hospital. An extra building on a sufficiently large campus isn't going to improve academics by any appreciable amount.

edit to respond to your own edit:

You're still being needlessly sensationalistic yourself. The phrase "pissing money away" features once, in "But when folks like Alex spend their later years trying to “do good” with the millions they were paid for actually doing good, they usually end up pissing it away." Note that this is qualified with 'usually', and doesn't say hospitals and academics are "pissing money away". He does note that extra wings and additional lecture halls are unnecessary, but this is neither saying that hospitals are worthless, nor saying that charitable spending on hospitals, universities, or (the nowhere mentioned) libraries is worthless. Be careful with language.

His main point is the odd social idea that for-profit innovation is inferior to charitably spending is well taken. It should be noted that, for example, inferior products with superior marketing can actually damage overall welfare. Monopolistic business practices, again, can be profitable but damaging. Financial success correlates with having done good, but does not guarantee it.

The problem is that saying that spending on hospitals and universities is "pissing money away" is much more sexy than saying that "in this geographic location and at this point in time, increasing the size of the campus will have a fairly low marginal value, whereas a larger marginal value could be achieved through other means."

For the record I, too, would have preferred that the money be put towards, for instance, mitigating existential risk. On the other hand, I'm very grateful to the people who funded the hospitals, universities, and public libraries from which I've benefited.

First, you shouldn't expect such an unnecessarily verbose explanation of 'pissing money away' when anyone willing to follow the argument productively would happily understand that he didn't mean polio vaccinations aren't helpful. (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/against-disclai.html)

Secondly, he does say the same exact things you want him to. He says that most people "do good" in ways that actually "[piss] money away", explaining that we have too much of things we don't need, and saying that more good could be achieved by other means.

edit to address your first point: He directly addresses the 'correlation' of financial success to 'doing good': "When we look back on people in the past and what they did that we are thankful for, creating innovative products, processes, and organizations should come out near the top; that is mainly what made us rich." (emphasis mine)

Wow, I read that paper you linked to and that guy seriously has problems interpreting scientific data. In fact he has no business writing any scientific papers.

His statement that antibiotics have not cured the diseases they cured or that public health measures do not increase health and lifetimes are pretty much ridiculous and his reasoning falls apart pretty quickly.

Anyways sorry to go off topic, but it is really annoying that people take this stuff seriously and treat it as science.

Might I humbly submit that it would be better to make one's own money (no matter how small the amount) and use it for what charity one sees as most appropriate, rather than criticize what someone else chooses to do with the money they've earned.

Allowing people to earn money means accepting the fact that they may use it in a manner that seems sub-optimal to you.

All due respect, I don't think you're getting what Robin Hanson is about. (Which is understandable if this is the only post of his you've ever read.)

The point of this post isn't to criticize Alex Grass's choices, it's to point out that our social system has a rather bizarre bias. We applaud Grass's spending money on these charities -- presumably because it's an ostensibly selfless act -- despite the fact that he actually did more social good by making the money than he did by giving it away. (Not saying I agree, just trying to clarify.)

A running theme, maybe the primary theme, in this blog is that people make deeply suboptimal choices (whether measured by social interest or self interest) because they're really more interested in sending signals than they are in achieving optimal outcomes.

The blog is worth a longer look; for me, I don't know how much I agree with Hanson's signaling-centric view of the world, but I'm impressed with how deeply he thinks about these things, and how he manages to talk about these topics without devolving into misanthropically simplified "people are dumb" conclusions.

You are correct in assuming that I've read very little Robin Hanson. I'll definitely give it a further look.

I've just become tired recently of every large (and usually socially beneficial) charitable donation being followed by a wake of "how could he/she have used his/her oversized wealth for that cause when there are so many more worthy causes that I care about?"

The point is not that the money went to a valid cause that the author doesn't care about; the point is that the money went to an invalid cause. Which is fine and legal and all, but it's not really charity.

Actually, upon further reading, I think ck113 has got it dead on. Its not about the money, the individual or even the charity where the money actually ended up. Its about the bizarre social pressures that drive the decisions.

Wish the blog post had spent a few extra sentences setting up some context for those of us who are less "Hanson literate".

My question is whether the signalling is actually approaches a deeper optimal.

For example, I seem to be more deeply motivated by things like relationships with others and ideals, than naked self interest or societal interest. These suboptimal choices Hanson points out signal to others the value of the less physically based motivations for themselves. I start to lose hope if I think I'm the only one who has such ideals and somewhat question my own sanity. But, when others signal that these ideals are actually crucial to their own decision making, I feel I'm not the only one and am more motivated to follow them.

But, how do such ideals related to naked self and societal interest? Well, the ideals tend to motivate the deeper insights we generate, and motivate people to work together voluntarily without the overhead of contracts and reward/punishment systems. I would argue that while perhaps inefficient in the short term, these "biases" actually turn out to be much, much more efficient in the long term. I.e. just look at what happens when people do lose hope. They don't suddenly become productivity monsters, instead they tend to turn both self and other destructive. Definitely not creating value in terms of self and societal interest here...

FTA: But when folks like Alex spend their later years trying to "do good" with the millions they were paid for actually doing good, they usually end up pissing it away.

I think he's missing the critical point that they enjoy pissing it away (as he calls it). Being able to spend the money you acquire in ways that bring you personal enjoyment is the whole reason for acquiring money.

The bottom line is that it isn't critically important to a working system how wealthy people choose to spend their money toward the end of their lives. What's important is that they be allowed to spend their money in ways they enjoy so that their younger selves are motivated to make the money in the first place by creating wealth for others.

How hard would you work on a startup if I told you that, if it succeeded, you could only use the money to create another startup, ad nauseum?

What's much more saddening is when politicians get acclaim for spending other people's money in useless ways, since they never produced any value in the first place.

Seriously, we already have too much cure for cancer

That's actually part of the point here; rather than donating to something that might produce a cure for cancer, he donated to a building, presumably one that has his name on it. Perhaps someone in the building will find the cure, but said person quite likely would have found it in another building just as well. Especially if the money had gone to research and not bricks and mortar.

If there was a massive shortage of medical research space this may have been a rational contribution, but I do not think that is the most important problem facing medical research right now.

Do consider the text of this reply carefully, please; there's a contingent statement in it. I'm not flatly asserting that donations for buildings would never be useful; rather, the point is that it is very unlikely that this donation was the optimal (or even close to optimal) use of his money in the real world we actually live in (rather than a hypothetical world where well-funded medical researchers have to give up research because they can't find anywhere to do it), if his goal was to actually advance the cause of science and help people, rather than have people tell him how wonderful his contribution is. (Indeed, it is quite likely that he had no reason to perceive a difference between those two things, and again, that difference is a recurring theme in Hanson's writings.)

But when I think of all the good that could be done by philanthropists who actually wanted more to do good than to look good, it makes me sad.

Shame on you, OP. How dare you infer anyone else's intent, especially someone giving so much. You're inference that they would prefer to look good rather than do good is speculative and insulting. Better you should just say, "Thank you," and STFU.

Shame on you, edw519. Where does he infer that Mr. Grass had such intent? Your inference that Hanson would prefer to denigrate rather than elucidate is speculative and insulting. Better you should forsake your sacred horse of generous people are beyond reproach and 'STFU'.

Hanson mentions "folks like Alex trying to 'do good'", and that his proposed alternative of funding innovation "wouldn't have looked so good for Mr. Grass". He notes that Mr. Grass "[showed] loyalty to his clan", but parents also show unfortunate baby dribbling, whether they like to or not. Even the quoted line fails to show whether Mr. Grass is of the former or latter group. Hanson laments the social structures that promote and reward "looking good" in lieu of "doing good", implying that someone with the goal of "doing good" may accidentally "look good" instead.

Where does he infer that Mr. Grass had such intent?

Did you actually read the article, req2? If you had, you would have noticed among other insults:

But when folks like Alex spend their later years trying to "do good" with the millions they were paid for actually doing good, they usually end up pissing it away.

Pretty explicit to me. It's stunning that OP, or anyone else for that matter, would question the motives of those giving charity. His total lack of class completely overshadows any other message he may have had.

What you said to me was either a personal insult or a bad joke. Doesn't matter. Either way, this conversation is over.

Look at that sentence. It says he tried to do good, not that he tried to look good. This is in direct contradiction to your claim.

It's pretty stunning to me that you would think any motives are beyond reproach. Your reverence for men who do nominally good things is the very thing Hanson is trying to limit in preference of actually good things.

too true.

What an asshole. I hope the author never needs medical care he cannot afford. I hope he never gets in a position where he has to rely on another person's charity.

Or maybe I hope he does .... I am not sure about that yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com