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I would argue that EA has been trying to pick up some of the slack. Likely they favored the most effective measures, but it seems to me that they stopped because they ran out of funds rather than because they thought that most of the things USAID funded were net negative
The truth is that before Trump, USAID was spending 12-15G$/a on global healthcare and EA (with a total budget of 1.5-2G$/a over all cause areas) is simply not in the position to simply replace the gap with some spare change.
Was there some USAID funded NGO delivering books with inspiring stories about racial justice to some structurally disadvantaged girls? Probably. Was this where the median dollar was spent? Unlikely, it seems more likely that it got into vaccination campaigns and the like.
In the past, USAID was part of a broader strategy of the US painting itself as the good guy. Sure, sometimes they would bomb the shit out of you and steal your oil, but overall they were not a terrible hegemon as these things go. Trump does not care about USAID as a tool of soft power because he does not understand soft power. His levers of foreign policy are tariffs and the US military.
I read an article describing aid recipients being asked where they think the aid comes from. They had no idea. I'm growing increasingly skeptical of of our precious soft power and the ruinous consequences for losing it.
Was the influence campaign really aimed at the end recipients though? Presumably the local governing class knew where the money was coming from.
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USAID has been, since its early days, a tool for the CIA to do all of the things they are not legally allowed to do since the Church Comittee kneecapped their dirty tricks department.
If you wanted to overthrow a nominally democratic government, you called USAID.
This was a well-known talking point among the 70s and 80s hippies, but they seem to have conveniently forgotten about it recently.
The problem with USAID, is just like the Roman legions, it began to turn its attention inward and become a player in domestic politics.
Yeah but it seems like in a bunch of places that what originally started as a local CIA office with clearish aims 50-60 years ago then eventually got swallowed into this huge NGO complex and run by people with do-gooderism aims but insufficient understanding of what the projects they're suddenly taking over are actually supposed to be doing
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The US never gets any credit for any of the great things we do (Covid vaccines being a recent example) but gets maximum blame for bad things. No one ever said how great the US was because of USAID, but when we took it away, there were howls of protest.
So I would say that, it's not just Trump. The U.S. hasn't understood soft power in a long time. Everyone hates us. So, if hated, better at least to be respected than to continue to beg for scraps of affection.
I do hope that EA's will fully fund the most effective measures with a small share of the bonanza of money coming their way post Anthropic and Open AI IPO's. Personally, I predict little progress on Africa's core problems but much higher SF real estate prices and political donations to politicians who promise to regulate AI. Perhaps I'm overly cynical. I do think that EA's in general believe what they say. It's just that they are also lazy and bullshit and status seeking, just like everyone else.
“But you fuck just one goat…”
Exactly what I’m talking about.
Every country except America is basically so full of goat fuckers they sing about it in the national anthem. They’re proud of fucking goats. And the sins of the US are like “You didn’t save the world hard enough this time. Why aren't you perfect.”
We've been a doormat for ingrates.
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There were lots of Covid vaccines available. The counterfactual where the US didn't develop a covid vaccine looks like one where Sputnik and Astrazeneca take most of the three US vaccine's early market share.
Sputnik? No, I seriously doubt that.
In the end, vaccines didn't end the pandemic. Omicron did that.
So the question was how many effective doses can be delivered in the shortest amount of time to save the most lives before the arrival of Omicron. A vaccine that arrived in 2022 was mostly useless. The US vaccines which arrived in early 2021 saved millions.
Sputnik predated the US vaccines.
Yes, I remember. It doesn't mean it was going to replace the US vaccines which were superior in quality and had better data to support them. As I'm sure you remember, scaling is also an issue. I didn't get my shot until June 2021. Imagine how long it would have taken if only Sputnik was available.
US vaccines saved millions of lives.
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