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When "going out and helping other people" you need to carefully evaluate any side effects or consequences, and also recognize that some methods of helping are m
by kevingadd 4y ago
When "going out and helping other people" you need to carefully evaluate any side effects or consequences, and also recognize that some methods of helping are more wasteful than others.
Would it be better to buy 10 needy people health insurance, or to use that money advocating for health care reforms? What if it's 100 people instead?
In general, should you act locally or act globally? Should you invest your money to use it for big improvements, or spend on an ongoing basis making small improvements instead?
- kipchak 4y agoI don't think I would consider a good action wasteful, even if their might have been a outcome with more of a benefit. While it's worth considering for example what the best way to improve overall health is as there's no real objective way to evaluate the superiority of advocating for reform versus helping people directly there isn't much more information available past your present biases and past experiences to sway you one way or the other. I might be able to for example estimate that 1M spent on reform might have x% chance of improving outcomes for y number people, but it would be so tortured of an inference it's really just a guess based on what you already think. As a result I think going with your best guess is good enough, to avoid decision paralysis if nothing else.