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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   3332 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 18, 2024

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Perhaps weird comment here as I've just had two bottles of wine for pain relief (not getting into that). But I just wanted to make a comment on EA's bizarre (to me) priorities, with the headline example of malaria nets.

I've had malaria in the DRC, and if I had died, as I came extremely close to doing many times, it would have been about as easy a death as one can get (maybe 1.5/10). By contrast, speaking as someone who gets punched in the face for a living, a bad hit to the liver is 9/10 pain for 30 seconds and if liver disease comes even remotely close in pain levels to that, donating money to cure liver cancer is infinitely more aligned to EA values than, well, basically anything I can think of. I suspect most malaria-net supporters are young enough that they have never experienced actual pain.

How much good will more liver cancer funding do on the margin?

Yeah, malaria nets are cheap and effective, whilst liver cancer research is complicated

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