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The rational use of excess money depends on what you care about. If you place more value on living an extra few decades than on the welfare of people you don't
by pjscott 16y ago
The rational use of excess money depends on what you care about. If you place more value on living an extra few decades than on the welfare of people you don't know, then from that set of priorities, spending your extra cash on longevity research is perfectly reasonable. You can argue that people shouldn't feel that way -- that we should be more consistent in caring about the people we know and the people we don't -- but you'll be fighting our instincts every step of the way, which is kind of difficult in practice.
(Note that I'm not taking a position here one way or another. If I were, I might point out that new technology generates jobs that can alleviate poverty more effectively than most forms of aid. Then I might argue with myself, saying that there are some forms of aid which are actually very, very cost-effective, and link to GiveWell. Then I might point out that we can do more than one thing, and that it's probably most effective to try to get people to more effectively contribute to things they do care about, rather than trying to change what they value. If you want to directly help people living in poverty, consider going to http://givewell.org/ http://givewell.org/ and looking at what they recommend. If you want to live longer, the SENS Foundation is doing some good work there and could definitely use donations. Damn, I thought I wasn't going to take a position, and now I just took three of them.)
- feral 16y agoJust to clarify, I never mentioned aid. What's rational does of course depends on what axioms you have. I guess its not obvious, so I'll explain my thinking. I think there are two broad scenarios. Scenario 1: You care about increasing well-being and life-expectancy globally in the system. In which case the money better spent making those who currently die young, live longer. After all, if nothing else, it is extremely inefficient to have all those people dying in their prime. Scenario 2: You care solely about increasing your own well-being, and not about whats best for the group. In which case, you'll keep your money to yourself, and try freeload off other peoples investment in longevity research. Because, unless you are exceedingly wealthy, your contributions will make very little difference to the overall research effort, but will make a very large difference to you. (Maybe you get sick, or circumstances change; for most people, their money has higher utility kept for such circumstances, than donated to a common research effort).