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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34433 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Virtually the entire point of altruistic charity is to give people things they couldn't otherwise afford themselves. That is, distributing goods/services that aren't otherwise profitable.

But even if you don't care about that, malaria nets have positive externalities, which means even a myopic free-market promoter should see the obvious value here.

Finally, again, why the double standard? You don't ask churches why they don't set up farms instead of staff food kitchens. You might retort that EAs claim to care about effectiveness, but you have given no actual evidence to think your plan is better from a utilitarian or NPV perspective.

To clarify, I see charity for an African society as way different than charity for domestic homeless. For the society, you could do charity by giving them technology or organizational principles they are themselves unable to produce. The equivalent doesn't really exist for homeless. My gripe is mostly that the malaria charity only begs more charity.

Have you considered the positive externalities of malaria?

Churches operating food kitchens does not rapidly increase the demand for food kitchens. But let's say it does. The church is enabling the procreation of its own people, not hostile foreigners.

But even if you don't care about that, malaria nets have positive externalities,

Whether or not something is a positive externality (for him) at all depends on your preferences and the prior distribution of property rights. You can't simply take this for granted.

which means even a myopic free-market promoter should see the obvious value here.

This is an obvious sneer, please don't do that.

This is an obvious sneer, please don't do that.

Only if you think its directed at someone in this conversation. The person I'm talking to hasn't indicated they hold such beliefs, and have, in fact, indicated the opposite with their strong visceral feeling of loyalty to those close to them. This makes my use of the phrase not a sneer, but a rhetorical usage similar to saying "Even a Nazi would agree Einstein is a genius."

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