Comment by yboris
3 years ago
Regardless of where you end up working, consider donating some non-trivial part of your income to cost-effective charities (ones that use research-proven methods to help as many individuals as possible "biggest bang for the buck").
Finding such organizations is easier now than ever, since GiveWell has been working on this problem for over a decade: https://www.givewell.org/
And 10% seems like a good amount to give to charity - join the thousands of others already doing it: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/
The amount of good money can do is tremendous. For example, $3 donated to AMF (Against Malaria Foundation) results in a distribution of an anti-mosquito bednet protecting about 2 people from malaria for 3-4 years (evidence shows: prevents transmission, decreases malaria incidence in the area; kids don't miss school, parents avoid loss of income due to sickness; prevents death, and other good things).
Do you know if there are any organizations or websites that do what GiveWell does for more specific issues? Perhaps something like a money-to-impact-in-chosen-field rating?
As best as I could tell when I last checked, GiveWell's one metric is life years added/dollar. That's a great goal, to the point where it feels selfish to care about anything else, but when I look at my local community I do also want to know: What charities are most cost-effective at solving the local housing crisis, or preventing the disproportionate number of deaths for <minority group X> in the community, or helping refugees get back on their feet, etc.?
I wish I knew, but I'm unsure. I think with effectiveness in mind, the Effective Altruists are your best community to explore and interact with. There are various Facebook groups (and other areas on the web) within EA that focus on specific topics (environment, well-being, etc) so I suspect you could find something if you search around and ask around.
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
ps - A humble thought. As tempting as it is to help within one's community, it's worthwhile to recognize that given the inequality in the world, and that it's just a luck-accident that you were born in this community rather than another, and that it very likely is the case that you can do a lot more good by focusing on individuals living in less-well-off-areas than what is nearby, it is good to reflect and see if you'd be willing to direct some of your philanthropic actions towards the more-effective endeavors.
That's a great recommendation. I'll have to give Effective Altruism a look.
Well, yes, helping one's community instead of helping individuals in less well-of areas seems selfish to the point of evil, but at the same time, it's easy to feel like https://xkcd.com/871/. If I volunteer or donate in my community, I can personally verify that something has changed, in a way that I can't on another continent.
Also, I don't personally value the years of my own life that highly. There are plenty of things that I'd happily sacrifice my own life for or rather die than endure, so it makes sense to dedicate some of my donations to helping others avoid those fates.
So yes, rationally, I think GiveWell is an amazing organization and I'm a terrible person for not donating all of my philanthropic work to malaria eradication, but realistically I'm likely to donate more in total if I also find other organizations helping with causes I'm personally invested in.
i am not sure, i feel that helping individuals remotely is sort of like giving people fish instead of teaching them to fish. i'd focus on projects that actually have an impact on a community by helping the community to develop themselves. the best i can think of to help an individual is to offer them a job, but other help ought to be more community oriented. unless you have the ability to actually move to those places and help through building friendship. but that is much harder to achieve.
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