What’s the best way to spend $20K to help the common good? | Hacker News Reader

What’s the best way to spend $20K to help the common good?

80000hours.org

159 pointsBenjaminTodd181 comments

Another important aspect might be to consider how the $20k was obtained in the first place. What resources were consumed to generate that wealth? What pollution was generated? Which parts of society benefited, and which did not?

Here is a contrived example:

Suppose you obtained $20k by applying your skills as a consultant where you helped some business make an additional $200k profit by more effectively advertising their products.

Suppose that business has a profit of 20% for each item they sell, so you've actually lifted their revenue by $1m.

Now, suppose these products are essentially useless consumer products that will go out of fashion within 1 year.

I claim without evidence that the environmental impact of producing, advertising, distributing and disposing of $1m of useless products may, in many cases, be well in excess of how much of that impact you could attempt to reverse with a $20k budget.

So, another option is to consider is that the world may be better off if you didn't earn that $20k in the first place. It very much depends on the direct and indirect effects of how you did it.

edit: I am curious if I am copping the odd down-vote because this argument is complete nonsense (in which case please help me modify my beliefs!) or simply because I mention something that is perhaps uncomfortable to reflect upon. I claim no moral high ground here.

Someone else will be the consultant, perhaps spending $20k on more useless products. In that case, you doing the consulting is still net positive.

Perhaps a better suggestion than not earning that $20k is to earn it by working with companies which do not produce useless products. Certainly worth considering for someone who wants to spend $20k to do good. On the other hand, perhaps they are already doing that .).

Someone else will be the consultant, perhaps spending $20k on more useless products. In that case, you doing the consulting is still net positive.

Agreed, when you're evaluating the morality of the effects of an action - rather than the action in itself - you must compare them with what would likely have happened, not assume that nothing would happen instead.

A simple example is self-defence: punching someone it wrong - unless they would've harmed someone more if they hadn't been punched. Comparing the likely alternative scenario is essential to judge the effects of the action.

This argument is only correct under the assumption that you are the only person on earth making this decision. It is like arguing that you shouldn't go voting because the chance that your vote changes the result is, for all practical matters, zero.

You're thinking on the level of decisional strategies across agents. Arguments earlier up the comment chain where thinking on the level of implementing decisions in a given context for one agent, where the context includes other agents with unmodifiable strategies.

Yes, and I believe it is very strange to assume that those other agents have unmodifiable strategies when you are discussing strategies with them :-)

No, it still works if you assume that enough people simply don't care about the ethics of the action. Only if the vast majority of consultants were asking themselves the same thing would it really matter.

Your analogy doesn't really work for me, because I do think the effect of voting for an individual, and therefore its moral outcome, is mostly irrelevant. I vote because I like the action in itself.

Granted, assuming you trust your own judgement about other people's values. Still, something doesn't feel right to me. It sounds too much like a "cognitive dissonance" type of justification for acting against one's own values. You have a lot more certainty about the effect and morality of things you yourself are doing, and a lot uncertainty about how much damage this other person (who would happily fill in for you) is doing now instead. It's hard to know if one less person willing to do "bad things" would simply cause another person (who doesn't care) to "turn bad". Or to put it more extreme: you don't become a dealer of illegal drugs because someone else will sell the drugs instead who would spend the earnings worse than you.

There's certainly a large element of uncertainty, but that is hardly a reason to avoid taking these into account.

You say it sounds like a justification for acting against one's values - I'd put it in reverse: values, much like rights, are a system for deciding what to do when the uncertainty or cost of making a decision is too great. Blindly following them is folly if you actually want to avoid harming people.

I think that "work with companies that do not produce useless products" is a mildly positive idea, given the context of the system we're in. Even better - work with organisations that are not solely for-profit and that do work that genuinely benefits society, particularly the disadvantaged. Some examples:

1. the "getup.org / kickstarter" crowd-sourced lobbying suggestion made by `icanhackit` in this thread. Particularly if you can lobby to introduce legislation/regulation to bend the rules of the capitalist game in a socially progressive direction!

2. Pollinate Energy (http://pollinateenergy.org/) make solar-powered lights to displace the use of kerosene for lighting by some of India's poor. They run it as a mix of a business and a charity. Unlike a charity, they sell their products and make money to keep operating. Their products displace an inferior competing lighting solution (saving people money and reducing risk from fire). Compared to a pure-charity approach, people take better care of solar lights that they have to pay for (rather ones they are given for free).

People don't like their lifestyle called into question. When they and their peers each consume 10-100x average per capita consumption, there are some uncomfortable truths.

mind... blown... hah I've definitely read things like this before but.... damn it just sounds so much like people thinking electric cars will save the world without considering where the energy is actually (not hypothetically) coming from.... then that example starts to gets recursive because electric cars are expensive, HOW did you get that extra 40k to be able to afford it? hah

I think you're right and the biggest example of this is Bill Gates, he shouldn't have scrapped that much money in the first place...

When people try to make these judgements you end up repeating the mistakes of communism, where (e.g.) very good research into genetics and psychology was abandoned because people thought it wouldn't be useful, and resources were wasted producing old manufactured goods (inefficient machines and the like) that no-one wanted.

Even if in this one example the $20k was obtained through a net negative action, overall it seems like the invisible hand is better at allocating resources than well-intentioned human judgement. So the best strategy for the world, as counterintuitive as it seems, is to blindly do whatever makes you the most money.

You should read about negative externalities. If everyone did whatever would make them the most money, the net effect would be to exploit as many resources and turn them into waste at an ever increasing speed, since the goal is simply to increase the money velocity. The result would be a population explosion and crash.

Looking at the graph of the human population, are you so sure the efficiency of capitalism is sustainable?

Sure; there are specific cases where capitalism doesn't work well and other approaches are better. I see what I wrote goes further than I intended. What I meant to say was that in the general, overall average case capitalism works best. But "blindly" was overstating it.

Under ideal circumstances, the invisible hand finds the best solution for people's needs weighted by their wealth. The needs of a poor person do not count at all, which is why we are considering donations. We have many rules already in place to prevent negative side-effects caused by people doing "blindly whatever makes the most money", like enslaving their debtors. The failure of communism does not mean that everyone is better off when we stop thinking about the needs of others.

>the mistakes of communism, where (e.g.) very good research into genetics and psychology was abandoned because people thought it wouldn't be useful, and resources were wasted producing old manufactured goods (inefficient machines and the like) that no-one wanted

Are you taking as given that this never happens under capitalism?

> Are you taking as given that this never happens under capitalism?

Of course it's not foolproof. But the feedback loops that supply and demand provide mean that resources are more likely to be spent on things that at least some people want.

I did a stint in a rural bangladeshi hospital while a medical student.

I went on an outreach camp with an opthalmologist. In one village we saw dozens of elderly people partially or fully blind from cataracts. None of them could afford the surgery. I asked the opthalmologist how much the operation was and he said "$40 each", so I said "ok choose the 20 people who need this operation the most and ill give you the $800". They put 20 of them in minivans and took them to the hospital the next day and all 20 got their operations. Had a whole ward of really delighted people.

I've seen fundraising campaigns from the big charities (Oxfam, Unicef etc) where they put a price on different interventions. E.g. £5 buys a dose of medicine, £10 vaccinates a child, £50 buys a goat for a family, etc.

I've often found this sort of fundraising slightly off-putting because it implies that there is literally a line of people waiting to be vaccinated, and they're just waiting for your money before they can move on to the next child. I find this scenario hard to believe, and I think the over-simplification is patronising.

However you've described a situation where there literally was a line of people waiting for cataract operations, and your donation had an incredible impact on 20 people's lives.

It would be great if there were easier ways to donate money directly to people like you did. Donating money via huge organisations that employ hundreds of people in developed countries seems like an incredibly inefficient way of doing it.

To put it another way, I'm sure most people would rather pay for 20 cataract surgeries for 20 real people than 20 notional goats

street wisdom (or they...) says that roughly 95% of charity/help donations go to management and delivery of those donations, and only 5% is spent on actual goods (be it medicine, blanket, food etc.) that help people. it seems a bit over-the top statement, but then you realize how massive organizations (or corporations?) like UN are, employing thousands and thousands of people in most expensive parts of the world (New York, Geneva... seriously WTF?).

Here in Geneva, there are gazillions of non-profit orgs, then there are various organizations grouping those non profits and so on. Still talking about one of most expensive cities in the world. Yes, those people probably don't have private bank-levels of salary, but I know a people or two who are curently buying high-priced properties over the border in France, so they are more than OK.

Friend in quite high position in Red cross hates UN with passion, stating they are useless in real crysis scenarios, just bureaucrats etc. Not sure if that's an objective statement, but there is probably at least some truth there.

What I decided to do, at least for now - Amnesty International. Rather than putting bandage where bleeding, it might lead to improvement of system. And I pay directly organization of lawyers who actually try to do good stuff, not bureaucrats who travel all around the world and check some spreadsheets and do presentations.

But what one poster says here is probably one of best things - directly invest into treating people, no useless middlemen who, like it or not, also need to be payed.

This is probably the ideal outcome of volunteer tourism.

You could always find someone you like and give it to them ;) http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2569

In seriousness, GiveWell ranks charities by their effectiveness. You could give to one of their top charities: http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities "These are evidence-backed, thoroughly vetted, underfunded organizations."

Edit: (in reference to z3ugma's comment) further down that page is actually a charity whose mission is to aid salt iodization programmes in developing countries. I honestly had no idea this was even an issue until now.

GiveWell is great, and I seriously considered making "give to GiveWell recommended charities" the recommendation of the article. However, I think it's even better to give to the Open Philanthropy Project (a collaboration between GiveWell and Good Ventures) or to give to GiveWell itself, rather than their recommended charities (which has the effect of increasing OpenPhil's funds). It depends on the extent to which you share GiveWell's values though.

or to give to GiveWell itself

This would be the most optimal use of $20k IMHO - giving to an organization that guides donations to more honest, better operated charities means more people effectively helped. $20k could be used to cover hosting and operations costs so that people like you and I have a resource to show us what will give the most bang for our collective buck.

Billions of dollars go to charities annually but high administrative costs and poor management means only a fraction reaches the intended target.

Not all administrative costs are bad. Givewell itself is 100% overhead, for instance.

What are the benefits to giving to Open Philanthropy Project / GiveWell / Giving What We Can Trust over donating directly to the charities they recommend?

The recommended charities don't change often, so it wouldn't be much of a time saving. And it puts a lot of power into the trusts' hands.

All those options are a little different.

OpenPhil is planning to give to substantially different charities from GiveWell recommended charities: http://www.open-philanthropy.org/

Giving to GiveWell or Giving What We Can means your money is spent on research and advocacy, probably resulting in a greater total impact: https://80000hours.org/2015/06/donating-to-giving-what-we-ca... Giving to GiveWell also has the effect of increasing the funds available to OpenPhil, since OpenPhil (to some extent) makes up the short fall in GiveWell's funding.

The Giving What We Can Trust is just a convenient way to have a Donor Advised Fund. The money goes to whichever charities you like. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/trust

It's only 20 grand. As I tried to mention below, aim higher. You've got the nerds running around in the weeds here on HN.

This other story on HN is not gaining any traction but it's interesting because a 33 year old Malayasian billionaire is financing using Watson to assist with cancer treatment.

"http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons...

"Jho Low, the 33-year-old billionaire who is bankrolling the $50 million MD Anderson project with Watson, said the effort grew out of his grandfather’s treatment for leukemia in Malaysia. Low said that he felt fortunate to be able to connect his grandfather’s doctors remotely with MD Anderson specialists to devise the best treatment plan. He believes everyone, rich or poor, should have the same access to that kind of expertise."

It's probably not gaining traction because much of Jho Low's wealth comes from (allegedly) the embezzlement and misappropriation of money from a state-funded Malaysian investment fund. Just google Jho Low and 1MDB. The case currently threatens to destabilize the Malaysian government.

If you're a young personal at the start of your career, then I agree it could easily make more sense to invest it in yourself (e.g. education, trying out a startup, graduate school).

Whole-heartedly agreed. Until you have more money than you know what to do with, the expected social returns from just about everywhere you put your money would be far dwarfed by the returns you'd get from investing in yourself and giving back once you've got enough piled up to where it doesn't matter one whit whether you have it or not.

That doesn't make sense to me. If you give money to poorer people, it allows them to invest in themselves at a higher rate of return than you can achieve.

No; ten people accruing compound interest (for example) on $100 is not nearly as good as one person accruing compound interest on $1000, and then distributing the dividends. Why? Because fixed costs eat away the interest gains of the ten much more than the one.

Every system has friction. You have to concentrate power to overcome friction and get things done. We'd be knocking off the world's problems a lot faster if we could "focus fire" on them. Ten diseases that might each take a decade to cure with 1/10th the donation could be solved half the time or less if each disease got a year of all the donations. But charity is more about signalling your clever pet cause than global optimization of future world-states, so nobody will let go of their second-best (or, realistically, 897th-best) charity.

If it is indeed socially optimal to concentrate wealth, then we should advocate a regressive tax policy and encourage the poor to donate to the upper middle class.

Do you know of published research that supports this conclusion? I'm honestly curious.

The expertise and worldviews one accumulates in piling up indecent amounts of cash, doesn't always help in it's eventual efficient distribution.

It probably doesn't hurt either. Bill Gates (and Warren Buffett) seem to be doing fine at philanthropy.

Or someone you don't like: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rodstewart188864....

It's probably shipping $20,000 of iodized salt to the developing world:

Iodine deficiency is a leading cause of preventable mental impairment, as iodine is a micronutrient crucial to brain development. An estimated 2 billion people-- almost a third of the earth’s population--have low iodine intake and are at risk for suffering from the complications of iodine deficiency.

Eradication of iodine deficiency is highly cost-effective— worldwide, the cost of salt iodization per year is estimated at $0.02-0.05 per child covered, and the cost per child's death averted is $1000 and per disability-adjusted life year gained is $34-36.

I agree micronutrients are a very promising intervention, along with some other cheap, proven health interventions like malaria nets (I mention Against Malaria Foundation in the post). Here's a list: http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/201...

You also need to find a competent group to implement the intervention. That's basically what the charity evaluators GiveWell and Giving What We Can do.

Here's a promising group specialising in micronutrient supplementation in particular: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/top-charities/project-health...

Don't take this wrongly, but this suggestion seemingly has cognitive bias; you're too focused on one issue. Even if you're really concerned about this particular issue, than helping the existing production/Logistics chain of salt manufacturing to add Iodine is a better spend than shipping $20,000 worth of iodized salt.

Yup. Now, logistically, how hard is this? It seems promising.

Let’s assume to do this we’d want to dedicate at least one person full-time to this. There’s the sourcing of the iodized salt, determining how one ships such a thing (presumably overseas), and to what specific place it should go. I assume there’s customs to get the shipment across. Then, once it’s there, how it should be distributed.

Phew, that’s sounds like more than one person’s worth of work, and that’s just the first shipment. We need to repeat the process – including raising more funds.

I assume this person that’s hired is desirable for their logistical skills. Let’s imagine they already have money in the bank, and so will work for less than the market would otherwise pay them. How about $60K/year? Add supplies, taxes and benefits to that, I can see $100K per year for this rare value of an employee.

How far did our $20K go? Not very. Everyone is skilled and honest and working hard, but we find that $20K doesn’t supply $20K of iodized salt to people in need.

In fact, it mostly went to the salary of the skilled Westerner who is our organization. Now we see why people create charities, but also why it’s hard for charities to meet their mission even when things like malaria netting are cheap.

To be clear, this is not cynicism. It’s just that if it were a simply problem of multiplying dollars times cheap-but-effective product, it would already be solved.

Shipping salt is less effective than adding iodine to salt that's already being shipped. Paying someone to make these connections is expensive, but directly lowers costs over just shipping iodized salt. In the end you might average spending 50:50 on manpower vs materials but get 10x value in iodized salt shipped vs cost of said salt.

http://www.saltinstitute.org/news-articles/iodized-salt/

Depending on where in the developing world this is, it might be more helpful to buy the salt locally than to ship it from outside.

What about delivery? Without a delivery mechanism to those who need it this would be a well meaning but not very useful.

haha, well I think that was implied. It's not as if you can literally write "the developing world" on a shipping label and just pour in a ton of morton's.

I agree that the advice given is overly vague. GP should list an actionable way to to give iodized salt.

How about just sending the iodine and let them iodize their existing salt supplies?

flaws:

1. same 'who do I write on the shipping label' concern

2. assumes a sufficient existing salt supply (perhaps these people already needed salt, so this aid healed two birds with one bandaid)

3. assumes knowledge about proper iodization (ratios, sanitation, etc)

> What about delivery? Without a delivery mechanism to those who need it this would be a well meaning but not very useful.

It doesn't, which is why it's a really bad idea, there exist charities that can deliver it already just give them the money. Even if you could get it to people they possibly won't use it without the complex knowledge of local issues.

Similar - http://www.luckyironfish.com/

Use it to lobby people of influence to release even more funds for your hobby-horse charity. More abstract; use it to fund the creation of a site that's a merger of Getup.org and Kickstarter so that we can crowd-source lobbying. That way the common person can compete with the petrochemical and military industrial companies by dropping a dollar or ten on their chosen hobby-horse issue. Small donations multiplied by many participants will result in considerable funds.

Politicians are an interface to policy and money is the API.

There's a rule of thumb called the Tullock Paradox that suggests the ROI from lobbying is stupidly large, though no one is really sure why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullock_paradox

On the other hand, and this is something I've always felt about Bill Gates, I'd need to see a full economic accounting of all the loss to global society from their monopolostic rent-seeking behaviour, before I'd believe that their giving the profits away to charity would counterbalance that behaviour.

So you believe the whole of Microsoft's contribution to the world has been a net negative?

It seems to me they've made possible for countless businesses to do their day-to-day work more efficiently.

The idea of crowdsourcing lobbying is fucking fantastic.

I always liked the idea of Benjamin Franklin's two century trust.

In 1790 when he died, he left £1,000 each to the cities of Boston and Philly, to be kept in trust for 100 years. There was supposed to be £130,000 by 1890, of which £100,000 would be spent, and another £30,000 left to compound for another 100 years. [1]

Even after a significant distribution in 1890, the funds distributed about $7 million to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia in 1990. The original investment was about $80,000 (for both cities) in today's dollars. [2]

[1] - http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_ph...

[2] - http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number12/heldman.ht...

Instead of getting a more efficient car, how about spending it on moving somewhere where you don't need a car? That $20k could go towards a more expensive home that is closer to downtown or public transport links.

As a European who has lived in cities with pretty decent public transport for the last 10+ years (I lived in the countryside before that), it's mind boggling to me that most American cities are so car-centric.

Something to think about with cars and trucks is Americans love to spend thousands to save tens.

So the best way to spend $20K on vehicles is probably $20K of delivery services / delivery truck drivers in order to obtain some economy of scale effects. Hauling 800 pounds of dirt in a small hybrid is bad, spending $25K extra to buy a truck to avoid the home depot $19 rental truck is worse, but best of all is spending $100 to have the giant home depot truck deliver it next time it swings by, repeated 200 times.

Also $20K of purchasing in bulk to eliminate extra trips. The best way to drive to walmart to buy a 4-pack of toilet paper that you just ran out of, is not a 8 mpg truck or a 10 mpg SUV or even an electric car, but to spend a little more $$$ up front to buy the giant pack of toilet paper to avoid running out and eliminate making an extra trip in the first place.

I had the opportunity to speak with some Bangladeshi labor organizers who help workers organize unions in the textile factories there. It sounds like they are doing some great work[0][1]. Organizers' salaries are apparently well under five hundred USD per month, and they are on the front lines of a struggle against the global wage race to the bottom and unsafe working conditions. There are some organizations I've worked with in the US that have connections with some of them, and I am strongly considering to these groups in Bangladesh.

The main question is whether or not this will simply lead to these jobs being pushed to even poorer countries with even lower wages -- though that would probably help those poorer countries.

0: http://www.ranaplaza-arrangement.org/ Compensation to victims of the Rana Plaza factory disaster.

1: http://www.voanews.com/content/labor-unions-bangladesh-garme... "Since 2010, the number of active garment industry unions grew from seven to 200. They represent some 150,000 workers."

Charged at $200/hr, $20k = 100 hours.

Keep the money for yourself, and spend 100 hours of your time talking to a poor person. Help them find a better job, or make a better financial plan, or eat healthier, or just listen to what they have to say and tell them they can call you if they need someone.

This is by far the biggest impact a person like Paul Buchheit could make on the world. Even if his $20k could go 100% to a better water bottle in Africa, or a more efficient hybrid, or whatever, it will pale in comparison to how he could personally change someone's life if he walked up to them and took the time to try.

So go blow $20k at the club or on a cool car, after you've earned it by hitting the streets and solving your neighbor's problems for 100 hours. Someday your neighbors might do the same ;)

"Keep the money for yourself, and spend 100 hours of your time talking to a poor person."

The rich have been telling the poor what to do since bibibical times, and before."

I don't think I have ever heard much value in any of their quips? Sure, they offer advice, but it's always advice that helped them in their unique situation.

They always leave out the important stuff; like just how much help, support(including emotional) they received from family. The school tuition, business advice, the garage in order to tinker in, money, attorneys that don't advertise , trust funds, good medical care when needed, the rehab, the pat on the back when the world decides to treat them like the poor, etc.)

I was in Barnes & Noble the other night(my exciting Friday nights). There was a guy who obviously had a lot of problems(from the looks of it--a mental disorder, and a lack of money) from my twisted perspective. A lady decided she was going to help him. Help him loudly--so everyone sipping their $4 drinks, and coffee cake--could hear her "helpful" sentiments. She loudly offered him $10, but "only use it for food?" She then asked him "What's the problem?"

He walked away in embarrassment. I will never forget the pain on his face.

So give money without strings. Give advice if the poor person asks for it. In my county(Marin County); I can honestly say that if not from the early support these rich kids received, many would be homeless, or stuck in nowhere jobs.

I'm sorry, if you're serious, this is the most entitled and egotistical suggestion I've ever read in my life, it's kind of shocking. The best way to spend $20K charitably is to bill oneself $200/hr and spend 100 hours sharing one's massive brain with homeless people by giving them... a talking? (While, again, billing $200/hour for it.)

Then spend that well-earned money on hookers and blow? You've made a difference?

Honestly... words fail me.

You miss the point :)

I don't think it's helpful to others to go clubbing, in fact it's not an activity I'd do myself if I had that much money (nor would I waste money on a car).

My point is that the $20k can't help someone as much as you can personally.

So someone who is homeless and forced to beg or commit petty theft in order to eat would appreciate a chat more than $20k? You should try that and mention you're paying yourself $200 an hour because you think that's better for them.

all right, I've deleted that part. We'll just have to disagree.

It's not a given that the best use of "$20k worth of time/effort" is in the kinds of labor that you, personally, can produce. Nor is it a given that, even if you make $200 an hour, that you'd be worth $200 an hour on the talking-to-a-poor-person market. For that much you could likely pay for five times as many person-hours from trained social workers! (Which is a fairly good use of the money, come to think of it- a very practical form of education.) Likewise, if you consider you're taking the role of a social worker yourself (and likely without even a degree in said work,) it's only fair to "pay" yourself what real social workers make.

But I mean, if you really want to talk yourself into buying that car, go for it I guess. :)

Point taken, but I could make the reverse point: "if you really want to talk yourself out of speaking to that scary-looking man on your block, spend some money with the Gates Foundation instead!"

I think it's fine to spend money on charities and other social causes, but my point is that many don't have the courage to face the problems they can solve without money. I think that's the best answer to Paul Buchheit's original question.

I think it's sad that the author of this blog post, and other commenters here, truly believe that by running some numbers they can prove how much their money is changing the world.

Changing the life of one person in a community can change that whole community. The world is not made of numbers, it's made of people. You have the best chance of making a big change in the world, if you focus on helping the people who live right next to you.

> Changing the life of one person in a community can change that whole community. The world is not made of numbers, it's made of people. You have the best chance of making a big change in the world, if you focus on helping the people who live right next to you.

This sounds like unsupported platitude. What about helping someone local will help the overall world more than malaria nets or vaccinations? It gives you good feelings, but it's not actually BETTER.

There may be an argument that pulling someone out of poverty in the US makes them more likely to create change in the world themselves than pulling someone out of poverty abroad, but I'd find that to be tenuous.

What? How is that better than saving 10 lives from malaria or curing 100s of people of blindness who suffer from trachoma?

It's not and entirely falls into the "noble poor" fallacy.

Though I disagree with some of the logistics of this comment (like paying yourself or 'earning' a car), I agree that sometimes what people need are more people, not money or handouts or programs. There are some problems that can't be solved just by throwing money at them. Time and commitment are valuable resources as well. There are lots of people willing to donate money towards a cause. But how many would, say, foster a kid? That's a huge time commitment and an emotional commitment as well. It's also riskier on your end because you open yourself up to all the heartache that human relationships can bring.

It's weird how so many commenters here seem obsessed with this utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest amount of people" approach to charity. Option A gives clean drinking water to 1000 people. Option B adds a drop in the bucket of funding for breast cancer research. Option C helps one child escape a life of violence on the streets. Who are you to look at these and try to quantity which has done the greatest good? It's one thing to compare the effectiveness of programs in achieving their own goals, it's another thing to try and rank totally different humanitarian efforts. These types of things can't be quantified.

I was focusing on what to do with money in the article. I agree that sometimes time is needed instead.

It's definitely hard to compare the effects of different humanitarian efforts. The problem is that you have to choose something. Whenever you spend money to you're acting based on an implicit ranking. Rather than throw up our hands with "this can't be quantified" and give randomly, or give according to your whims, I think we should try to make the best decisions we can.

The original commenter made a suggestion to exchange money for time on the giver's end and I think that's valid suggestion. I don't remember suggesting one to throw up his hands and give out money randomly. I was only arguing against the purely utilitarian approach that some HN commenters seem to have in selecting where to spend one's money.

Wait, so just walk up to a poor person and say "hey, I'm going to rescue you?" Then give them all your "advice" they probably don't care to hear?

I have a lot of very poor family that make a lot of very poor financial choices. Unless they ask for my advice, I won't say a word - its very rude otherwise.

This doesn't do much for the common good though. Let's dive into Bentham and see how good this is. Obviously the hedonistic calculus is not completely numeric, but we can do some work here. Let's compare malaria nets with getting a poor person a job.

Intensity: How strong is the pleasure? -- Well, many "common good" philanthropic causes deal with terrible diseases. That said, getting a job probably is better than not getting malaria. Passive vs active.

Duration: How long will the pleasure last? -- Here, not getting malaria is obviously longer lasting than a job. Jobs go away. Malaria nets when properly utilized are pretty solid for the long term.

Certainty or uncertainty: How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur? -- Probably equal here.

Propinquity or remoteness: How soon will the pleasure occur? -- Probably equal here.

Fecundity: The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind. -- This one is hardest to quantify. There's obviously a ratchet quality to someone experiencing success.

Purity: The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind. --- Malaria nets DEFINITELY can win out here. See above notes re: firing.

Extent: How many people will be affected? -- And here malaria nets take the cake and win the entire calculus. 20k invested in malaria nets will affect MANY more people than your hundred hours.

100 hours is nowhere near enough time to meaningfully change someone's life. You'll spend that long just gaining their trust -- and why should they follow your advice, anyway?

This doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but it's a much bigger investment than 100 hours.

100% agree.

It's nowhere near enough time in most cases. If you're justifying this volunteer work based on billing yourself, what are you going to say to the person with which you've made a relationship? "Sorry, your hundred hours are up, I gotta get back to my routine now."

You're only helping a few by doing that. Tell me why is that efficient?

Is helping people always about efficiency? It comes back to the give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish concept.

That concept is about efficiency.

You could teach way more people to fish in the third world than you could by helping homeless people here.

Thank you for that. That's the stance that I naturally gravitate to, but one I have been doubting lately. Your comment is encouraging.

This might not be the most effective way to steer your resources towards common good, but there's this persnickety failure scenario where a man in need may receive material support but still lack a human connection and a sense of belonging.

Of course, you're still literally trading off human lives for a warm fuzzy feeling of personal involvement.

I'm looking forward to Peter Singer's upcoming Coursera lectures on effective altruism, I want to see him develop this position with rigor. Meanwhile http://www.givewell.org/ has a good analysis.

I want to give a signal boost to this Coursera. I didn't know Singer was going to be teaching this class, and it's going to be great.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/altruism

Imagine a person working a minimum wage job with $10k in credit card debt due to a family member's unplanned medical expenses. Now imagine which would help them more: 100 hours of you telling that they need to increase their earning power to pay off their credit card debt? Or $20k to immediately pay off their credit card debt and build a rainy day fund? I don't think poor people are so ignorant that 100 hours of your advice is going to be worth $20k to them, no offense.

Honestly, your answer just seems like a shield for selfishness. $20k is a significant sum of money that would make a significant difference in other people's lives.

I would make STEM kits for $20 each (common lab compounds, electronic components, microcontroller, lenses, list of online resources, etc.) I would give them to high school kids rather than the younger kids they're usually geared towards. Make it a little bit edgy - high schoolers love fire we all know this - not like a bit of rocket candy is more dangerous that whatever else they have access to. If they want the next kit they pay $20, but they also have to give the previous kit to a noob first. The second kit would how them how to get all the components/compounds they need generally free or cheap.

One thing this article didn't mention is giving money towards research. There's no lack of underfunded labs filled with scientists researching rarer diseases or unique approaches to humanitarian issues. 20K could go a long way in helping these smaller labs. It would take some searching and talking on the giver's end to find the right cause and scientists he or she trusts, but it wouldn't be too hard with the powers of the internet.

I have a lab that's trying to find a way to use beer consumption to prevent cancer.

But seriously, make sure to find an objective measurement of a research topic's plausibility before you give the money. There's no lack of research projects where a donation is statistically identical to setting the money on fire.

> There's no lack of research projects where a donation is statistically identical to setting the money on fire.

Very very true.

The Open Philanthropy Project is aiming to fund research. I'd prefer to let them do the research working out where to donate, rather than picking scientists myself.

See, I'd prefer to do the research myself and have a relationship with the scientists.

OK, but that is entertainment, not charity of philanthropy.

No, I would see that as taking the initiative to actually understand the projects that you're funding for yourself. In doing this you become more invested in that cause and the community surrounding it.

Yes, entertainment.

No, personal investment and responsibility.

$20K is roughly one annual PhD student stipend in Canada. Attending one major conference is $1000 - $2500 for a student depending how far they travel.

You might find what you are looking for here: https://www.consano.org/

If you want to be utilitarian about it, maximizing common good derived from a modest donation, then pick (a) the venture that will produce the greatest gain in common good if implemented, and (b) an organization with a low administrative overhead that is in your opinion doing a good job of making progress towards (a). That is the 80/20 calculation. You'll never know if you got it right, but it has the best chance of doing something rather than nothing.

For my money, (a) is ending degenerative aging by periodic repair of that damage that causes it, and (b) is the SENS Research Foundation. There is no other single cause of death and suffering as large as the biological wear and tear that causes degeneration and death in aging. There is no other organization I know of that will definitely put all donations to research, advocacy, and scientific organization relating to this task. There are other single-disease or single-field patient advocate and research organizations out there that do a little work relevant to age-related damage, but you've got no way to ensure a donation as small as a few thousand dollars will actually go to the aging-relevant 1% of what they do. Even cancer and stem cell fields are doing a large amount of work that has no bearing on the best path forward.

In fact I'm personally donating $25K to the SENS Research Foundation this year, and running a matching campaign in search of others willing to do the same.

There are other options for using modest amounts of money that are more of a lottery; use your money to persuade other people to give money, try to grow your money to give later, etc, etc. But these are much more unreliable, or for a few thousand dollars just not even worth trying versus outright donation to a cause.

I don't agree with (b) low overhead ratio, mainly for these reasons: http://overheadmyth.com/

Planning to give later is a VERY effective use of money for early career professionals (who will be able to make stable investments over long periods of time and then give larger payouts when their own situations are more stable as well) or people who do not as strongly believe in a given cause as you do (who can wait until the causes they believe in are more stable or until they have researched more sufficiently).

I have a retirement portfolio and a wealth building portfolio. The latter is currently funded by my credit cards cash back policy, aggressively seeks market gains, and forms the basis of my personal philanthropic efforts. My giving currently focuses on arts organizations and local community development, as that's a personal passion. My long term giving is hunger focused, where a $50 donation is less meaningful and it makes sense for me to grow my money first.

> My long term giving is hunger focused, where a $50 donation is less meaningful and it makes sense for me to grow my money first.

Why is it less meaningful?

> Invest in a startup. This is better than investing in the S&P500. The expected return is higher.

Is that actually true, or is the author using some meaning of the phrase "expected return" that isn't common?

My understanding is that it isn't even true for professional startup investors, and they have preferential access to dealflow that your $20,000 doesn't.

The median return is certainly lower, but the expected return at least should be higher. So most startup investments, and probably most startup investors will fail, but some will succeed spectacularly. The point is, if everyone who is interested in investing to eventually donate did so by investing in startups, their aggregate returns should be higher than if they invested in the S&P or whatever instead - so it's superior even if most of them end up with a negative return. (As opposed to when you're investing to fund your own retirement, in which case you don't so much care how others' investments go.)

My understanding is that the median fund underperforms the S&P, and that investment managers at pension funds and endowments put money into VC funds because their strategies require them to put a slice of money into that asset class.

And, again: that's the outcome for investors that have preferred access to dealflow.

I don't have evidence to back up my assertion - only the theory that in an efficient market riskier assets should be priced appropriately. So I don't know for a fact that the expected return is higher. That said, the fact that the median fund underperforms the S&P doesn't necessarily prove that the expected return on an individual startup investment will do so. For one thing, funds will have overhead - probably significant overhead in startup investing. (Of course, they provide valuable diversification, but as mentioned above, that shouldn't be the priority in this particular case.) Also, even if the median fund underforms before costs, the average might still outperform, if the winners are relatively concentrated.

The application of the EMH to a market as overhyped, information-poor and illiquid a market as startup investment is questionable. And another consequence of competitive markets is that funds with board seats, insider information and ability to negotiate preferential terms based on expected follow-on investment take on less risk than you when investing, but they shape the market prices for the asset.

$20k is friends & family or crowdfunding money, and I suspect that whilst there will be some winners, the median return on those asset classes will be -100%

All good points. And I agree that the median return will likely be -100%. Honestly I think you're probably right that even the average return will probably be underwhelming, even if theoretically it shouldn't be. I am curious though. I certainly wouldn't invest my money in startups on the theory that on average I would end up with more to donate, even if I intended to donate 100% of the proceeds regardless...

My reasoning is that if you accept something like the efficient market hypothesis, investing in startups is higher risk than investing in the S&P500, so the return should be higher. You could also just buy the S&P500 with leverage.

I've also seen some empirical evidence in support, though I haven't vetted it: http://sites.kauffman.org/pdf/angel_groups_111207.pdf

What's really interesting is that if you are (far) less intelligent than the average person you should almost certainly destroy it (assuming you can't just give it to someone smarter than you.)

This assures you don't do something stupid and guarantees everyone else is at least a tiny bit better off (because their money is now worth more).

`Burning' the cash is actually an interesting idea. Especially if you think inflation is a problem.

He's wrong. Spending 20k on a hybrid car facilitates demand for a hybrid car, which leads to better hybrid cars. If your buying it to directly (rather than indirectly) improve the environment, you don't get what your are doing.

That's true it's another effect, but I doubt it means hybrid cars win e.g. it seems you could have a greater impact by speeding up the development of hybrid cars just by giving the $20,000 in cash directly to Toyota.

If I had the money, I think I'd give half to my local primary school. They could do with some books and PCs.

The other half I spend in Uganda, I'd just do random acts of kindness. Buy medicine for someone, school books for a kid. Shoes or clothed for someone else. Would be a really fun way to spend the money.

Rich people seem so clinical about their money. Get yer hands dirty, talk to some people in need.

These rich people are trying to do something impactful and sustainable, not just personally entertaining "poverty porn"

The article states "Indeed, you may be able to offset a ton of CO2 for as little as $1" and also: "... If we were to use the mean rather than the median estimate, we would get a social cost of carbon of $48 per metric ton of CO2." So for every $1 spent, you can save society a cost of $48? A 4,800% social return on your money seems pretty good!

How about spending financial wealth on an educational program that redefines wealth? I've started studying what Arthur Brock is doing and am trying to implement it into my alternative economics startup as much as possible. You cannot break down the Co2 that is processed by a tree into dollars...It's like breaking down the value of a human being through how much plasma can be extracted and selling it at market rate.

http://www.artbrock.com/videos/arthur-brock-transitioning-ne...

> It's like breaking down the value of a human being through how much plasma can be extracted and selling it at market rate.

That certainly puts a floor under the value of a human being.

> You cannot break down the Co2 that is processed by a tree into dollars

Why not?

The point is that this is the value obtained through extraction. There are other values that are non-financial that are not being calculated into the equation.

Trees are ecosystems. Human beings are ecosystems. They interact in incredibly complex ways with their external ecosystems.

To answer more simply, you can't break down the Co2 into dollar-value because it isn't the only value that a tree has. It has an incredible amount of all kinds of values. It helps create shade for other types of plants to grow, so we need to factor that in. It creates a habitat for certain insects that help with pollination. Those insects help keep away another type of insect that are bad for reasons X, Y, Z. The relationship is so vast and complicated, that to simply say, a tree is worth $40,000 is judging it by the wrong qualities.

It's like judging Einstein's Theory of Relativity based on the amount of words, but not on the ideas that are created when someone reads it and is inspired to create something new. Or judging a healthy diet simply by the amount of calories. It just doesn't work like that in the real world. The financial extraction of value is based on limited qualifiers that do not take into account the complexity of true-to-life value.

Putting a label of a certain monetary value on things doesn't deny that there's other value judgements to be made.

How do you decide which tree to cut down? Or whether to cut down a tree or break a stone?

Well, by taking into account all of the potential value judgments, then utilizing the ones most relevant to your decision, acknowledging the short-comings of your decision and making good on them.

Acknowledge - 100 values that Tree A brings. 85 values that Tree B brings. Judge - 12 values from Tree A are relevant to our decision. 8 values from Tree B are relevant to our decision. Cons - 3 values are really important that we should rectify for Tree A. 5 values for Tree B. Make Good - 1 value of Tree A cannot be replicated. All values of Tree B can be replicated. Conclusion - Cut down Tree B. Benefit from it. Make good on 5 values that are important.

I literally made up this decision-making on the spot, but if I put more than 30 seconds into it, I think I can refine it and make it applicable to a lot of spots. Yes, they would require qualitative thinking and are more complicated than a simple monetary equation, but it considers all of the externalities of our decisions beyond financial gain/loss and that was my initial point.

You could always check that box on your tax form that says you wish to make an additional contribution. That is, assuming taxes benefit the common good.

I'm sure the money will be spent wisely.

Based on this comment I suspect you didn't actually read the article, which explicitly evaluated this option...

The article addresses that giving to the US is likely to be less positive than giving to an international cause.

501(c)3 non-profits are tax deductible.

I'd recommend http://machineproject.com/ for the HN crowd

Also funding for workshops/education through makerspace type groups.

Also funding for clean water infrastructure in 3rd world regions.

I've been struggling with this a little bit - my income / spending currently results in me taking the standard deductible, so I'm not able to take advantage of this tax deduction. Therefore, it makes the most sense for me to hold off on donating, and save the money until I'm not taking the standard deduction, and then donate it all at once.

I've been shuffling money off into a separate savings account every month to get into the habit, and then I plan to use the balance of this account once I am in a situation where I am able to take advantage of this tax deduction. I do still donate money out of this account, just not a substantial account.

edit: I went back and read the article now :) - this chart [0] was helpful. If you're at the beginning of your career, this makes the argument for holding off on significant donation even stronger.

[0] https://3d4k2r1b9zry49ki142owdm5-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

I do a similar thing, but I have a fairly aggressive portfolio on Betterment that I store my eventual philanthropy in. I fund it out of my credit card's cash back, and unexpected extra income. It's very frustrating to not be able to take advantage of tax deductible gifts seemingly just because I don't own a home!

If you donate the investment directly to a non-profit, you will be able to deduct the full value of the investment, and won't have to pay capital gains on it.

Keeping the money in an investment account is a fairly good idea - I should have enough by the end of the year to make this worthwhile.

If you aren't giving enough to overpower the standard deduction, perhaps you aren't giving enough.

Regardless of how much someone is giving, they are still missing out on the tax deduction for the first $6300 (or $12.6k if filing jointly) of income.

Sounds very high minded. I'd research and find a need in your local community. Find some group doing good work already and allow them to expand.

Maybe it's a bigger kitchen for a group feeding the poor. Or a bigger office for college kids that are tutoring kids in math. If you take some time you will find something that has personal meaning for you.

As a sibling commenter somewhat flippantly notes, orgs like GiveWell, 80,000 hours (publisher of the post), Centre for Effective Altruism, and Giving What We Can are all focused on highly effective non-personal philanthropy. They are targeted toward "logical givers" and "impact investors" who do not need the sort of donor centric language and personal touches that many NPOs rely on for their fund development strategies.

This can be seen by orgs like OpenPhil that won't even take unsolicited minor donations.

These are orgs that are supporting "truly altruistic" giving, and trying to remove the personal connection from giving. These organization tend to use lines of thinking that remind me personally (though may or may not be inspired by) Mylan Engel and "Taking Hunger Seriously" (http://www.niu.edu/engel/_pdf/TakingHungerSeriously.pdf)

The question was framed in terms of helping the "common good". If you want to support your local community that's a different question.

What's wrong with being high minded?

Why should personal meaningfulness be an important criteria?

There's a crisis-pregnancy center a block from where I live (in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA). I do volunteer work there, and one of my friends is their director of child-care:

https://www.ourladysinn.org/

They do great work helping poor women in Saint Louis and their already-born children through difficult times. In addition to food, shelter and other basics, they provide professional counseling (many of their clients struggle with drug addiction) and try to help their clients get a solid footing with respect to employment and a safe place to live after they finish the program (about six weeks to several months after their child is born). Great attention is given to making sure the clients' children get to school on time, do their homework and are being given proper care.

I know the organization to be extremely thrifty – nothing goes to waste and they are very careful regarding how they spend money donated to the center. The organization also owns and runs a couple of resale shops in the same neighborhood, where many of the clients take their first steps (or first steps in awhile) carrying out job responsibilities, working under a manager. All proceeds from those shops flow back into the crisis-pregnancy center.

If I were to donate it, it would go to Khan Academy. Education is the most important thing too invest in, IMO.

Give it to Charity:Water or Water.org. Save lives, prevent disease, 4x economic multiple return on investment.

http://www.givewell.org/international/charities/charity-wate...

I think "effective altruism" is a big part of the reason why tech workers can't be moved to give a shit about solving the extreme social problems in their own backyards, that they have in many cases exacerbated, because solving them would be "inefficient".

I do not have a quote under hand, but preserving our history is important to make us better. Most of the recent history would already be lost if archive.org was not there. I do not see how giving to this cause could turn wrong.

$20,000 is possibly not enough but some sort of import export business to funnel money from a rich nation to a poor nation.

$1 stores do more to help the poor than a lot of charities (But not all charities)

Give it to the Greek Government - just kidding

Two months of rent in SF

This seems like helping people is something to be kept at arm's length. Even the list of options seem predicated on hyper-capitalism. Where's the compassion?

Compassion is the feeling compelling on to help others, no? In that case, the best thing to do is to help others as much as one can- that is, as effectively as one can.

Compassion makes you a nice person to hang out with. It doesn't make you an effective person.

No, compassion does not make you a nice person to hang out with:

"Compassion is the response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help. Compassion is really the act of going out of your way to help physical, spiritual, or emotional hurts or pains of another."

Giving your money to the Gates Foundation concentrates it on areas that are already receiving disproportionate help (e.g. from the Gates Foundation).

despite the many ways you could interpret "common good", i'd bet that feeding a couple of kids healthy food for several years would rank up there with just about anything.

Burn it and decrease inflation.

Burn it.

Pop some bottles at a club.

I would generalize the finding to: spend the money on something that rewards success and not failure.

Giving money to failing schools rewards failing schools.

Giving money to the poor and unemployed rewards being poor and unemployed.

Giving money to the homeless rewards being homeless.

Use the money to create opportunity, not to reward failure.

Your reply rubbed me the wrong way, as it implies that being poor, unemployed, or homeless are by definition failures. Perhaps you didn't intend that (or perhaps you do believe it). Not looking for a philosophical argument - just stating my opinion contrary to what yours comes across as.

How is being homeless not a failure on multiple levels? You can be poor by choice and happy with it, I agree. But is any sane person homeless by choice? Not traveling, hermit, not able to function in society, or many other cases. Just wanting to live somewhere and able to do work, but not having a home. To me that seems like a failure on multiple levels: country - global situation that allows people to be homeless, local - no community support or path to employment or investment into people, self - well... unless we give some income to everyone, and you can't claim benefits for not being able to work, you're expected to work for a place to live.

Unemployed is an artifact of the economy. I'd like to be successful enough to be unemployed, but rich and not homeless.

It is a failure on many levels - systematic ones, mostly. But if you read OP's post as not singling out the failure as being personally and solely responsible for their plight, rather than as a systematic failure, then we might simply differ on reading it. Donating money to combat homelessness at a systematic level is (in my opinion) probably a good thing. I just didn't get that sentiment in what I saw, though I allow for the (frequent and possible) chance that I am wrong in my interpretation.

Empathy failure. I hope if you ever screw up really badly there is someone else to give you a hand.

This is exactly what I wrote. Not having a community-level support for cases of "you screwed up badly" is a failure. Same for no benefits when "life screws you up badly". Not sure where you see the empathy failure.

Sorry - replied to wrong comment - should have been the top-level comment by ams6110. Absolutely not aimed at you.

If one takes a very mechanical world-view, then yes, you could say that those properties are a signal of failure. Failure to plan, keep a job, save money, etc.

Being very risk-averse myself, I would constitute all of the above under normal situations to be a failing on my part. Abnormal circumstances obviously change the dynamic a bit as they're almost always unavoidable. E.g. natural disasters, war, large-scale riots, etc.

I agree that risk aversion, planning, and other factors are good preventative measures to avoiding homelessness. The contrary case I can think of is the child who is homeless because the parent is. I cannot rightfully view them as having failed.

But a "safety net" enables people to take risks that work out positive for society. E.g. in the US people are much more willing to start a business (something that should be a net positive for society) once they pass the Medicaid eligibility age, since they can be assured they'll have healthcare even if their business fails. Heck, the joint-stock corporation, the big innovation of capitalism, is basically a way to reward failure (by limiting investors' liability in failure cases).

You do need to be careful about perverse incentives, but being homeless or unemployed is so bad for you that I can't imagine a few hundred dollars make it suddenly worth doing deliberately.

He's wrong. Spending 20k on a hybrid car facilitates demand for a hybrid car, which leads to better hybrid cars. If your buying it to better the environment, you don't get what your are doing.

You make a decent point, but I think you're being downvoted due to a mix of poor grammar and the unsupported (and rather blunt) statement, "He's wrong." Yes there is a greater benefit to buying a hybrid than the direct CO2 offset; however, I strongly suspect that no, that doesn't make it superior to the other options, so his main point stands.

If I had access to that kind of money i will be providing clean water to millions of people around the world

Another option is a local Church that support missions such as building schools for impoverished nations. I support a church that does this along with a missionary that runs an after school sports program in very poor area of Elkhart, Indiana. This helps gets kids off of streets, gives them food, shelter and a develops the community. Benefit of this is that I get to actually see the faces of the youth this impacts both in my backyard as well as in other nations.

Say what you will about religion but there are a lot of people out there who have a heart that yearns to help others, I don't care if they do it in the name of a god or not, the fact of the matter is they are going out there every day and touching peoples lives.

The concern here is that the purpose of a church mission is first to convert locals to Christianity, then to provide follow-on benefits like education and economic development. Donating the same amount of money to a secular organization should create more of those secondary benefits, because no effort needs to be spent on collecting followers for Christ.

However, you are right that church missions seem to have the easiest access to donations and labor, so they might be able to provide better secular education out of sheer scale.

> The concern here is that the purpose of a church mission is first to convert locals to Christianity, then to provide follow-on benefits like education and economic development.

So cynical. This definitely isn't true across the board. I grew up Southern Baptist, where charity was literally treated like a foot-in-the-door to evangelization and saving souls was the #1 agenda. So I get your sentiment. But in other veins of Christianity like Catholicism (which is roughly where I am now), the theology around charity is very different and it really is about serving others as Christ would--no strings attached. I think the proportion of Christian charities that behave as you describe is pretty small compared to those that focus on service first.

it certainly helps more than it hurts, but you can find the same thing without the baggage in many different charities. I've seen one too many missionaries get screwed because rumors overseas start telling congregations they aren't doing religion the right way. Usually it's just one supporting congregation and nothing comes of it, just hard times for the missionary, but I have seen one case personally where some epic rumors started and every supporting church pulled out at once and left a guy stranded overseas away from his family. The guy apparent was doing religion wrong or something. I was acquaintances with the guy and spoke with him regularly, although I never did get the low down on the whole story so maybe he deserves it for all I know.

This brings up an interesting question. What exactly comprises "the common good"?

That's a tricky philosophical question, but quick answer would be the long-term flourishing of sentient beings, treating everyone as equal.

https://80000hours.org/career-guide/framework/the-meaning-of...

It's not a particularly interesting question. It's almost the definition of a wrong question.

Most smaller church / religious outreach organizations that focus on poverty _within their local community_ end up being very efficient. But a soup kitchen is already a huge asterisk on the word common. You can't reliably feed humans with a global strategy: successful charity only happens locally.

This blog post looks like a reasonable assessment of the allocation of US$20,000 of capital in isolation. But it's clear that such a small amount of money can't possibly have an impact on the global population of humans, taken in isolation. By definition, any assessment of the common good depends on all common actions:

If you want to know what the common good is, it always depends on what everyone else does.

<quote>It's not a particularly interesting question. It's almost the definition of a wrong question.</quote>

Is it possible you are thinking superficially and not considering the longer term ramifications of actions?

<quote>By definition, any assessment of the common good depends on all common actions</quote>

That isn't a definition. That's a sales speak type obfuscated platitude. What exactly is "the common good"?

> Is it possible you are thinking superficially and not considering the longer term ramifications of actions?

No.

> That isn't a definition. That's a sales speak type platitude. What exactly is "the common good"?

Seems like you're misunderstanding my connection of "common" to "every single human" here. There is no way to meaningfully divide twenty grand amongst eight billion people. When we discuss "human rights" we are usually conflating positive government action and negative government action. Providing a minimum set of non-controversial services from the government (like "food" for example) is never the right answer in these debates.

To wit: If you have $20,000 sitting around, and you don't know what to do with it? Fuck you. As a general analysis of the impact any given $20k has in isolation, this post is interesting.

"> Is it possible you are thinking superficially and not considering the longer term ramifications of actions?

No."

Manifestly a wrong answer. Examples of correct answers would be "I don't believe so", "I doubt it", "It doesn't appear likely from my perspective".

"Impact" and "Fuck You" and "Post is Interesting" aside, I still ask... what comprises the common good? If you really think about this you may find the answer is not as easy or as certain as you appear to believe.

This is how I know you're sea-lioning me:

You don't understand that "common good" is impossible to define. This is one of the most basic discoveries of utilitarian ethical theories. It is sensible to ask what someone means if they use the term "common good" within the context of a proposal, but there is no general meaning of common good. There absolutely can't be.

"You don't understand that "common good" is impossible to define"

Maybe I do understand that. I'm not "sea-lioning" you at all. I'm just responding to a derisive and dismissive remark you made to a (IMOP) valid point. I don't necessarily believe in the validity of "discoveries" of utilitarian ethics. But I do believe "good" has, as you say, no general meaning. Which is why it is an interesting question.

I think that's not only an excellent question, but really the only interesting question.

If you cannot determine what the common good is -- if you cannot define your goals, then , as the Chesire Cat observed, it really doesn't matter which way you choose to go.

Americans gave $358 billion last year. $20k is a drop in the bucket.

https://philanthropy.com/interactives/giving-usa-2015

If you really want to make a big difference, start a company, create jobs, make millions then donate a larger sum of money.

I worked briefly for a philanthropic organization that had high visibility among super wealthy people. They accepted whatever donations, but didn't really pay attention unless you had at least $100K. The vast majority of their endowment came in multimillion dollar gifts from people who wanted hospitals named after themselves.

It's unfortunate that HN readers would rather run through the weeds trying to add zero to infinity, rather than try to actually make a real difference. If we could make medical research donations more efficient, for example, we could make a big difference. Say, for instance, we identified the best medical research charities, and have people donate to those.

Givewell.org. basically does what you propose.

I don't see any medical research charities:

http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

Did you read the article?

Their top two recommendations were invest in a startup, or give to the Gates foundation.

I said start a company. That's different than investing in someone else's company. You can't be much of an investor with $20k, that's about what Y Combinator gives a team for an initial seed. That money is quickly followed by VC money.

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