It’s almost like the best way to tackle poverty is to give people money, the best way to tackle homelessness is to give people houses, the best way to tackle bad health is to give people healthcare.
@@alliesakatI would disagree with their statement that poverty in America is “more important” than any other poverty- but, maybe they’re trying to point out the irony that some people point to poverty in Africa when there are homeless people at their own doorstep and streets…
I can bet they both speak Spanish as their native language as do I, we tend to be greedy down here in LATAM and if we see a chance to outgrow others or pull them back down most of us won't hesitate, I've seen it first hand
Reminds me of the classic Ken M (satirical for those who don't know) post that went like "I'm not going to donate money to the homeless, they'll just blow it all on food and shelter anyway"
One of Brazil's most substantial government assistance programs, Bolsa Família, is not quite but pretty close to a direct cash transfer. It has conditions for receiving, such as enrolling your children in school (we are supposed to have accessible public schools and transportation to them) and not submitting them to child labour, and there are plans to restrict the receiver accounts from using the money on gambling, but, that aside, it's up to the receiver's discretion. It, apparently, is even a net gain of money to the government because of how much it increases consumption and makes the community's economy run, overall netting even more money than input through taxes
Yeah any benefits, charity, and donations given to poor people in any country will always lead to that same money circulating in that country's economy (because they have to use the money to buy something, right). So it's a benefit not only to the individual person who received it, but also to the whole community around them, and the entire country they live in. This is also one of the reasons UBI can work better than people believe; because all that money is not just dumped into a black hole, but inevitably circulates in the country's economy, and slowly returns to the government where they can hand it out again!
There is a problem with the version of this video uploaded to Nebula. Thumbnail shows 28:12 but In the player it is only 17:21 (stopping mid sentence).
Sounds like we are for a few years definitely more in the category of "will have more impact if I dedicate my energy to spreading awareness at scale... and thus eventually millions of USD from will find their way to the EA or "the 1%" movement" ❤️ be well and rather work on spreading awareness, what's Your life savings few times over is someone's spare change and vice versa in third world countries. ❤ But sadly can't do everything alone dear friend 🙏🏻
A friend of mine started last year, instead of buying gifts for his friends, wanted to donate that money to a guy who lost his job so he could buy Christmas gifts for his children, best money I've ever spent. I have no problem with this charity either, its not much, but I won't do nothing.
You might to want to look into GiveWell, which does a lot of work in evaluating charities, whether they're effective at their stated goal, and how impactful their actions are. Obviously it's going to have the problem that not everything can have a number put on it, but they still check things that are useful to know: how much overhead the charity has, how much effort it makes to prevent corruption, etc.
9:30 this is why I dont like the concept of charity. it really bugs me that individuals, often those with less than those who have the most, have to give to those with even less, just because we can't organise and -overthrow- R...einvent that system. We have a global system of production that could adequately support all humans. It needs to be used to that end.
The concept of charity is in no way exclusive, or even antagonistic, with radical systemic reform. People like helping others, and naturally those with common values create organization to pursue these goals. Charity is just an efficient way to help people, and is unlikely to ever leave given the environment limitations of a post-scarcity society. Sorry if I misunderstood
@@connormcgee4711 No, not at all, and thanks for adding. I was indeed referring to a rather narrow conception and your point is well taken and welcome. cheers
@@connormcgee4711in theory yes, in practice, in our current world, no. Most charities are highly ineffective at helping people, often spending way more on advertisement than what goes to help people
@@ThylineTheGay The proportion of expenses is truly unfortunate, and it should be kept in mind, but organized giving has advantages. If the cause I want to support is poverty in my city, there is a serious argument that I should invest all my resources directly, into one of my students' families who is struggling for instance. Thus, all of my money is going towards the cause. However, proportion is not the only concern. Impact is. I do not know folks in parts of the world that need serious help, and the amount of time I spend to build those relations in unfeasible in my current life. Thus, if my money has a greater impact in a place out of reach, and has a 25% return on investment it is still more efficient, provided the effect is 4x what I can do directly. This does not take away from your note, but I wanted to clarify.
This video help raise some things people should think about when supporting charities. I work for a very small charity, and we struggle with donations and grants. The problem is we don't provide "money" or stuff. We provide counseling support to families where a child has an eating disorder. So the delivery would be the counseling and support, FREE education to the med school on the subject, and advice on how the system works (or not). But from a traditional metric, all our expenses are "back office", because all the "workers" are volunteers. So we need money only for Telecommmunications, Website, training of the Volunteers sometimes. So 100% of your donations deos not go directly to the prople we are supporting, and that prevents donations.
So what if they used that money to improve their housing? Maybe without their improvements it would be worse and they would spent more, like perhaps the before the improvement they get constant leaks or an inefficient electrical supply.
The biggest issue in places like africa is that their poverty isn't caused by lack of capital. It's an issue of politics, you can't build wealth in the midst of conflict where collaboration and trade can't take place.
It was only a quick mention, so easy to miss, but he said that they only work in areas that are currently stable. Like the rest of Africa, after putting aside whatever parts you're thinking about. (Note: Africa is a continent, like Asia and Europe)
and yet western companies still can set up their mines, factories and trade routes to this countries and then there's foreign tourists who travel there for hunting exotic animals just for fun
In the most early days of helping Africa, money ended up at governments in Africa and well, that money did not end up being used for the intended purposes to say the least
Fixed it for u: _"poverty isn't caused by lack of capital. It's an issue of politics"_ _"in places like __-africa-__ EVERYWHERE ON THIS PLANET"_ Trying to discuss this topic anywhere on this platform mostly ends with people sending me many 👎or comments that I'm on either end of the extremes of the political/economic spectrum - which is kinda funny, but overall means my posts are suppressed.
The impulse to try to track the effectiveness feels very natural, that's the way I was educated. But when we do this, there's something that creeps in. The question that got me on board with these kinds of charity is this one : Do you want to help ? Or do you want to buy control over poor people's expenses ? That second option feels dead wrong to me when said this way.
I don't think I've ever felt less seen while watching this channel, but in sort of a good way. The options you mentioned for what viewers might think were "better" uses were downright shocking to me. I suspect even the study of whether people will buy booze just seems like a way to convince potential donors rather than a reasonable thing to study.
I think it's a very neoliberal thing for people to need proof that giving money directly is a good thing. People have a right to spend money on whatever the hell they want, if that means spending it on vices then that's entirely understandable. We don't expect middle class people to give up on things they enjoy, why the hell should we be moralising about how the poor spend their money? People deserve to live their life how they see fit, and that's all that should matter.
@@SashaTremayne >We don't expect middle class people to give up on things they enjoy You... come from a more small-l liberal culture than me, it appears. Sure, it gets worse the poorer you are, but if there's a point where the moralising stops it's well above middle class. Like, in some cultures only the rich are allowed to have fun, in others no one is (but if you're rich it's easier to get it under the radar e.g. you have a nice house to drink in, not a street corner).
The crux of the argument is "What would *YOU* rather have in terms of support? Capital or some kind of items?" Freedom of choice is a hell of good argument.
remember you can always increase your impact by donating through your country's local version of the charity and then when filing your donation tax rebate, select, donate my rebate. multiply your impact by 1.33x
The criticism against it sounds very similar to peoples attacks on supports for the homeless. “Why help them with money when they will just use it on drugs and alcohol” it's just people applying their or prejudices against people they don't know in situations they don't understand. Yes, the old adage is “Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime”, but in the real world that man still needs to eat every day before you have taught them how to fish. And that's what people need, they need that up front support so they can get by until that longer form systematic change can happen. This kind of instant and direct aid is a sure fire way to give people the help they need to get by before that longer form change happens.
They also need a fishing rod, gear, a place to fish that has enough fish in it to sustain them, and the fish aren't filled with pollutants that would make them sick. Just teaching someone to fish does almost nothing.
"Teach a man to fish" is also fairly unrealistic to us, a social species which relies on community support. As civilizations we have always relied on groups of people to support each other, because on average it's impossible for an individual to be self-sustaining and separate from everyone else. That's the big neoliberal myth that has ruined so many countries in the past decades. The idea that you should have "individual responsibility" and that "there is no society, only individual people" and that you're a failure if you rely on other people to survive. We all rely on other people to survive (both physically and mentally), all the time!
I didn't like how you spoke negative about the traditional NGOs. Imo you made it sound like they're not that trustable. A general mistrust in charities will in the end hurt all of them, you should've avoided that.
My attitude when handing cash to someone is that if buying booze helps a person find a modicum of comfort while living in extreme discomfort, who am I to tell them they shouldn’t?
While I would expect it to be able to combat extreme poverty and I have heard about it before. I think it could be very helpful. One thing I would not ever call it would be a climate charity. In general, the more affluent people seem to be the more energy they consume with all the associated climate effects. Doesn't mean it's not valuable. It can certainly help. I would expect it to have good knock-on economic effects for the rest of the local community.
I think the point is that its helping communities become more climate resilient rather than focusing on climate mitigation. Like you say the wealthier people are more responsible but its the poorer communities that will feel the impact of the climate more.
15:00 because starting a different business is risky and buying a munch of land is worthless if you don’t have the knowledge or tools to work that land.
People (like me) think nothing of investing in companies. This is investing in people. There is great economic AND social benefits to investing in people. Thanks for pointing that out, it is an important thing to consider, especially when watching governments spend lots of OUR money dithering at COP every year.
Hey, I'm not sure if this is just on my phone or what, but your Nebula upload of this video cuts off at 17:24. Even though it looks like 28 minutes is there.
For me, your Nebula upload stops at 17:25, just before the start of the second part. It also shows that as the full length of the video. If it isn’t just me, someone should look into that.
People in rich countries always feel like they'd put that money to better use, and then we buy houses that are too big in from which we drive with ridiculously large and expensive vehicules to buy too much of very cheap, poorly made stuff that we didn't need that much to begin with.
Something that worries me is, within these communities, what prevents criminals from taking the money from recipients? A bit how we often hear that giving to beggars often ends up feeding local crime because they manage all the beggars
And that situation is nuanced too. Beggars will often organize or work for someone organizing them because that's the best (or even only) way of making enough to survive. Organizing also safeguards earnings because quite often police will regularly come by and confiscate the money. So they have someone going around collecting from the beggars. Usually the same person who drops them off and picks them up after a few hours (because it would be even more difficult to get to a good spot on one's own). The optics are bad and I'm sure there's a lot of abuse because it's inherently outside the law. It's not always bad people doing it but also the situation forcing people into "criminal" behavior to survive. Truth is, beggars shouldn't exist because societies shouldn't let people down like this. That would be the best way to cut off revenue to criminals who take advantage of the people who are forced to beg to survive.
I'm reticent to say this, as I no longer identify as an anarchist, but I still have a lot of sympathy with its ideals and see this as perfect proof that the empowerment of the most deprived should not just be financial or an improvement of living conditions, but that true empowerment can often come from trusting people and enabling them to make decisions for themselves over what affects their lives. This is fab, thanks so much for this video
@@najunix Don't get me wrong, I still agree with the fundamental anarchist principle that hierarchies aren't self justifying and if they can't justify themselves, they ought to be replaced by horizontal organisation. My issue is with how anarchists apply this principle in practice. In short, they don't. They don't actually ever give any of the particular hierarchies they despise any opportunity to justify themselves, or even attempt to consider on their own why these certain hierarchies might be justified in certain situations, eras or locations. Certain hierarchies such as landlords, police officers, bosses and politicians are viewed as inherently unjustifiable, evil even, not because they can't potentially justify themselves but because of the level of power these positions yield. To put it simply, in practice anarchists don't reject unjustified hierarchies, they reject hierarchies as a whole. Bakunin can give his boot maker caveat all he wants but that's not so much an authority in a hierarchical sense, that's a person with expertise who can't even hold onto your boots without your consent as a customer, not as an employee. What first revealed this to me was the fact that anarchists are often unable to give a realistic alternative to the hierarchies they wish to tear down. Frankly, if you're unable to come up with a realistic alternative for the hierarchy you wish to dismantle then you're inadvertently justifying the hierarchy's existence. What I've found over and over again is when you challenge an anarchist to suggest a workable alternative to a given status quo, they'll defer to the usual excuse that it's not up to them to come up with a solution, as it ought to be up to the future workers to decide democratically on an alternative. And yeah, I get it, it shouldn't be up to some random thought leader to decide what an anarchist based organisation should look like on behalf of the worker's collective will, but to be a realistic ideology it ought to be able to give a plethora of different alternatives to at least prove that workable alternatives actually exist. Could say more but can't be arsed to type! I hope what I've said makes sense. I still love the idea of as many coops and as much direct democracy as possible, I just think that a lot more studies and practical examples of coops need to be in place before I can give it my full blessing again. I would like to move towards it, but we're nowhere near the point of being able to justify some full scale revolution for it. Most people don't even know what anarchism even is, let alone support it. It would be beyond ironic to impose it on a population given it's all about letting the people decide.
Those of you who have incomes above the poverty level may donate to such worthy causes. Those of us who have incomes well below the poverty level need to inviest in ourselves and our families.
I tend to give as much as I can afford to similar causes. However, it bothers me quite a bit that there is this class of people that sit on unimaginable amounts of money and assets like dragons on their hoards. They could alleviate the problem a lot more than I ever could, but apparently choose not to do so.
Was just looking at a book on GoodReads and saw that you read it so came to check on your channel after years and your just posted : 0 great video will now fall down a rabbit hole and watch some more
My concern with all of these larger organization like red cross etc. is overhead. Adding all this bureaucracy just seems highly inefficient. What percentage of the donations is lost on overhead cost?
Percentages "overhead" is a really, really bad metric. All of that "overhead" money is not lost. It is used to enable the existence and operations of an organization that's helping (sometimes millions of) people all around the world. Overhead is a necessary part of running any organization and without it nobody would be able to so anything. I know people who work in such organizations and this metric is one of the things really hindering their work. It's making organizations less effective because they not only have to get approval for stuff like buying printer paper, they also have to waste time on documenting and justifying every little thing I wouldn't ever spend a second on in a for-profit company (including the purchase of printer paper). It's such a waste and it's hindering and slowing down their actual work, ie the support they're providing. All in the name of "efficiency".
@@jojo-pk That makes no sense. Every for-profit company cares about overhead cost, and they must. What you are describing is a symptom of ineffective management, not a symptom intrinsic to dealing with overhead costs.
Rich people know for a fact that poor people will waste any money given to them - why? Because if you give rich people money rich people will waste it. Poor people know that if you give other poor people money they will spend it on something absolutely essential because what they need are essentials.
You know, on top of everything you showcased in this video, I'm going to give you a huge kudos for saying "I was wrong". This is such a rare occurrence (in my experience) with influencers and such
Money is the institutionalized memento of an incomplete exchange of resources among equals and appears 'out of nothing' - by one of the two parties making a promise to deliver later while the resource 'giver' accepts that promise for as long as is needed. If people lack money it is a problem of our societies not giving them credit, not trusting them to be able to keep their promise. Another sub-story is that any promise can only be kept for a limited time span - our existing money does NOT reflect this fact, which leads to banks not lending money to poor people or all the other stuff that doesn't work - because it's not 'profitable'.
Most people in the world are not poor because of being stupid with money, so giving cash handouts will likely result in some sane choices for spending it. However, there are some issues to consider: 1. The scale of the problem: $10B sounds impressive, but considering there are billions of poor people it is peanuts on a per capita basis. So either it has to be very selective to make a meaningful impact with a small range, or be diluted and hardly have an effect. 2. Most poverty stems from lack of investments in education, healthcare, infrastructure as well as massive corruption in the political system. So, giving cash will alleviate some direct effects for some people but will never solve the systemic causes of the problem. 3. Notwithstanding my introduction, there are definitely cases where money will be spent on beer, gambling, and other counter productive issues. Earmarked donations, or having some sort of checks on spending, might sound paternalistic but in reality will contribute massively to positive outcomes. It's good to hear you're researching a sponsor before entering into a partnership, but please also follow up and make strong reporting and transparency requirements for it. How much overhead is spent, are the accounts for specific projects audited independently, etc etc.
Hey Simon, thanks a lot for this content! I was wanting to know more about which charities to donate to, since I don't really feel like I have the means to research properly myself. After watching, I gave a one-time donation. In your research, did you also find charities that work with euros? GiveDirectly only uses dollars, which means part of my donation ends up just paying the exchange fee. Also, I'd really like to find a charity that is best set up for monthly payments (which I know GiveDirectly also has but because of dollars I didn't feel comfortable to). If not, maybe a future video can be looking into those?
Most parts of Africa lack a lot of infrastructure to drive a more successful economy (roads, trains, navigable waterways, electrical grids, etc.). As an aside, this is a great thing, raising people out of poverty. But any economic improvement almost always comes with a larger carbon footprint (ex: China, India). So great for humanitarian reasons, but not a "climate change" fund.
The first time i heard about unconditional cash transfers was from the guy who made the “grabby aliens” videos and i was sold. Glad to see more people are finding out about this
This is a phenomenal video, Simon! I already knew about the power of direct cash transfers like Give Directly does, but I'd never really considered how it could be an effective means of building climate resiliency for those most unfairly effected by climate change. Thank you very much for sharing!
If we let people use money to increase their wealth or *shutters* for pleasure, then what will motivate them to accept to working conditions at my cobalt and emerald mines!?
I agree overall, but find it a conundrum and morally not as clear cut as you make it seem. On the one hand, yes, people in extreme poverty obviously understand their socioeconomic environment and their immediate needs. Clearly. On the other hand, we see here in our rich countries where education is available to everyone, how people make really bad personal finance decisions and finding themselves in debt traps all the time. So, is it really racist and colonial to think that in a country with little to no education people who are stuck in extreme poverty may not know how to use money effectively? I don't think so. Anyways, as I agreed in the beginning, the experience of people from rich countries does not fit the reality of people who live in extreme poverty. Apart from that, I agree that you probably do more good by valuing their ability to make decisions for themselves more than my own worries about whether my 10EUR donation is wasted or not. I think that's the most important point. And I extend that to my contribution to social services for people who receive unemployment support. Just let them have it and live the most dignified life they can afford with it.
I see that concern, but I think it's comparing two very different situations. In the countries where GiveDirectly operates, the access to financial services is very limited and often not available at all. I have no doubts that predatory lending services would wreak as much havoc in poor countries as in rich, but the situation they are currently in is far from there right now.
I don’t understand the opposition you make between effective altruism and give directly. Effective altruism has supported cash transfers for a long time (against the kind of moralizing mainstream charity attitude you described very well), as it was shown to be very effective. For example, Give directly has been a top charity on givewell a lot of times for years, so I wonder where you got that idea?
Yeah, this part feels like Simon is saying "oh but I'm not with _these_ creepy nerds" to legitimize his praise for GiveDirectly. It's a little off-putting.
I think it's mostly just a response to most people hearing about Effective Altruism in the context of extremely dodgy multi-billionaire (with clearly narcissistic and/or misogynistic personalities in some cases) tech bros like Altman, Bankman-Fried, and Musk etc etc. The term carries a lot of negative baggage for most people who have heard of it but not dug into it.
@@Juttutin it’s not just baggage, there are plenty of people in EA with insane views. Aschenbrenner seems to be generally well respected on the EA forum and his directly stated belief is “we should stop all climate change investment ASAP and invest into natural gas plants so we can beat China to AGI.”
I think it is a very bad look for a channel I thought to be very scientific to make this advertisement without mentioning any of the downsides. Really disengenuune
Interesting! But doesn't this cause a lot of inflation? Generally, giving people money without there being more products or services would just lead to inflation, wouldn't it?
You could have saved half an hour and said unconditional cash transfers. I have known for decades this is the best option for countering poverty. Once a person gets past their stereotyping discrimination and prejudice mindset it's obvious the poor themselves are best placed to manage donations as they see fit.
No kidding about the Effective Altruism types and "the ick"... too tied up with the techbro world and extreme Libertarian/ancap ideas, plus a lot of them have gone almost straight to deciding that the most important problem to solve is AI taking over the world, and thus the most effective thing to spend donations on is preventing/controlling that.
I like give directly and talked more positively of them before but became a bit more hesitant when I learned that a Tory was the president of the charity from 2022 - 2023. Makes me skeptical whenever a Tory is near anything 😅 I support the general idea of cash transfers but there’s a weird amount of libertarian, tech bro, similar weird people in those charity spaces
Seems a great way to ethically give in general to do good. However, it also seems a poor way to spend one's money to fight climate change. For climate change charities one's money should be certain to be invested in negative to low carbon technologies like helping people get solar, wind, microgrids, electric cooking, heat pumps, electric vehicles, electric farm equipment, investing in regenerative farming, habit protection and or restoration, and the like. These seem to be the best ways to help people, build wealth and resilience, and do so in a way that builds towards a carbon negative world.
i believe you to be a truthful person, i trust that you do effective research, but i cannot fully trust a video that is paid for by the organization the video is about. i hope that this is understood. if this video wasnt sponsored by givedirectly i would be much accepting of them as an effective charity.
I think it is a very bad look for a channel I thought to be very scientific to make this advertisement without mentioning any of the downsides. Really disingenuous.
And I think it's also a bad look to criticize someone for not mentioning downsides, then yourself proceed to not give even one example of some of the downsides he left out. Especially if they're bad enough that they might change people's minds about donating. Sure every plan has downsides, but nobody here can make a more informed decision if we aren't given any new information.
@HumbleWooper I agree with you on the fact that providing the downsides would be more beneficial. However, I am not a climate scientist, nor am I educated enough in this field to be able to provide more value than a quick google search would yield you. This is very different than a climate scientists praising this charity for 30 mins straight to an audience that, just like me, relies on his honest information, as I am not a climate scientist myself. After all, that is why I would watch this content. I also want to say that I don't think GiveDirectly is a bad charity, but rather that I expected a more balanced and neutral perspective, instead of this blatant advertisement. I will close this comment out by giving the results of my very brief research, noting that I am not an expert, so please do not take this at face value, but rather do your own research. The first thing I found was a number of articles describing a case of fraud and theft in the Democratic Republic of Kongo, where a lot of people were promised money that never came as GiveDirectly paused their program (after promising the money) after just under a million dollars was stolen from their funds. The affected people had to take out loans etc., as their plans could not wait for the rest of the money to finish, and were never reimbursed for it. To me, this was very striking, as simon even mentioned how fraud and theft was a problem in other charities, but apparently not in this one. Leaving cases like this out of the video is just straight disingenuous and is a result of him getting paid by GiveDirectly in my opinion. He also made it look like basically all of the money went straight to the people in need, which is simply false (about 83%) is given to households. The second item of concern I found was the cost-effectiveness. Simon said that cost-effectiveness is hard to quantify, which seems logical to me, however, multiple online sources have concerns of the longevity of the consumption gains and where the money will ultimately end up. Also, Simon tried to frame this charity as a climate charity, which for me is just very far-fetched. The cost-effectiveness seems to only be competitive when your aim is to combat poverty. It seems to not be cost-effective when your aim is saving lives, mitigating effects of climate change or stop climate change.
The average person in rich countries has done so much harm to the world through their pollution, some reparations are definitely in order. Unfortunately, we have a very selfish and gluttonous culture
@@pedrolopes3542 That makes no sense. I'm calling out what people do. I speak of the evidence. What, am I not supposed to call out the things that rich countries demonstrably do? If you're doing what you can to reduce your pollution and to compensate people for what pollution your lifestyle creates, that's one thing, but then you probably wouldn't be so offended. Clean up your act and behave like an adult.
What do you think about the problem of increasing suffering in this manner? The humans spending money on food which is from animal agriculture and doing the animal agriculture themselves increases the suffering of the animals being exploited, unless you have structures to make them aware of plant based agriculture being environmentally and economically efficient (or you somehow don't value the animals either at all or comparatively to the humans). And while I think they can have a justified reason to exploit an animal for their survival, you are the one giving them money without any education and thus are responsible for the increased suffering.
One concern I do have about this: A sudden large injection of money into a specific economy, Doesn't this massively spike in inflation? Completely counteracting the intent of the idea?
More cash flow does not automatically cause inflation. Especially in this situation portrayed here, where an entire community had so little it didn’t even function as an exchange medium. Thats why they all had additional benefit once the ball started rolling and the money basically just cycles through the community. But im no money person and wonder too when cash injection might cause problems and how to mitigate that
What's the point of charity if poor people dont know how to manage their income and how to generate money on their own? They will eat well for a couple of months or weeks and that's it. We are not providing the necessary for long term stability. You think we are, just because "they need money to start getting that long term stability" but im pretty sure it is well known (and it's too much proved by history and common sense) that without education and good nutrition, poor people in poor countries are not gonna make a fructuous and rich experience out of this charity simply because they DON'T HAVE the necessary education and intelligence and responsability to do so. And we are not even talking about corruption and politics in those countries which are even more concerning than the poverty itself.
Poor people aren't dumb. They lack cash. They often lack formal education too but they're still not dumb. The thing is, you need to have your basic needs for food, water, shelter, etc. met to be able to think about the bigger picture. If you have to spend all your time on survival you simply don't have time to start something that will improve your situation long-term.
@@jojo-pk And why aren't they considered 'dumb'? What argument exists to defend that claim? Poor education, inadequate nutrition, deteriorating health, and ingrained negative habits certainly contribute to a lack of cognitive development, and that is simply a fact. While some individuals may be born with higher than average intelligence (compared to their peers) and might potentially overcome the detrimental factors of their environment, the difference is often not significant enough to be truly transformative. At this point, I would need a realistic and replicable example proving that people living under these conditions can transcend such limitations. Extraordinary cases, of course, are not valid examples here, for reasons that are self evident. To think long-term and effect meaningful change within a country, both natural resources and educational opportunities are essential. However, even if these basic needs are met, there remains an inescapable obstacle: corruption, political manipulation, and ethnic divisions, which are rampant in many impoverished nations. These issues will continue to exploit the vulnerable, perpetuating a cycle of inequality and conflict. War, or some form of perpetual strife, is almost inevitable. Realistically speaking, I do not believe that charity, in the way it is often envisioned, will provide a lasting solution. Perhaps it will bring temporary relief to a few, offering fleeting moments of happiness, but ultimately, that is where it ends The moral of the story? Well this is what i think: the situation of impoverished countries in the face of climate change is akin to a ship sinking in the vast ocean. The poorest nations will sink first, yet this individual insists that we expend our resources and time helping those who are already doomed, when in reality they are beyond saving. Our focus should instead be on those nations that have yet to submerge. There, we might still have a chance to save them, as their infrastructure remains far more stable. It is far more pragmatic to direct our efforts toward a cause with a higher likelihood of success than to cling to one that, while seemingly more 'noble,' is far less likely to yield results. Let us concentrate on what is achievable, rather than what feels virtuous but is, in essence, a lost cause.
Such a nice deep dive 👌🏻 many thanks for the research , have to confirm I was donating to EA 10 years ago already. Slightly concerned about their "e/acc" division being out of touch with the other divisions, (e.g. their extremely effective programs preventing Malaria, deworming, Tuberculosis, etc. which I all consider more broad-minded, but who knows ❤ anyways it's great they all exist! Btw charity and giving back aside - they also run the "80,000 hours" project which is dedicated to helping individuals (from developed countries or not) find a meaningful and impactful career 👍🏻 much swell, almost landed a job thanks to them.
Yes, yes, that is all well and good. Seems amazing, actually! But, what do I need to do to donate the total collective wealth of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Bernard Arnault, Bill Gates - and anyone else sitting on more than a million USD for that matter - to climate charities?
i watched firsthand the miserable failure of the idea that you can use whatever arbitrary metric to determine the 'effectiveness' of a given act of charity a few years ago there was this idea that mosquito nets were just the best things ever and all other forms of aids were a waste of money. for real, that was a thing people would say and promote. and they'd constantly just lean on the same metric to 'prove', with DATA, that they were right and everyone doing non-mosquito-net charity was wrong note that these people didn't actually ever give money themselves or volunteer or in any way get involved in helping. they just stood off to the side, in droves, and shat out this bad faith argument as a means of discrediting aid agencies malaria is, of course, a huge problem and if a community is being killed by malaria then there's no foundation to build up to improve anything BUT! the same is true of water access. if people spend all of their time securing safe water, there is nothing to build on (and if they are constantly traveling far to get water, they are more likely to encounter mosquitos that may infect them with malaria) and the same is true of HIV and the same is true of literacy and... etc, etc, etc movements like 'effective altruism' are full of racist shitlord techbros and financebros that don't know or care about the complexities faced by communities struggling to exit the colonial damage done to them. what most of them seek to do by controlling the narrative around charity / aid is basically just colonialism 2.0
I think this comment makes a lot of bad faith arguments, and misrepresents EA in many ways. The fact is that many EAs are big fans of Give Directly and direct cash transfers. I have no idea why Simon has framed EA and Give Directly as competing philosophies, or as significantly different approaches to each other. EAs generally like Give Directly because of the good data showing how well it reduces suffering in the world! EA does not use "whatever arbitrary metric" to determine effectiveness. They try to understand how to reduce suffering as much as possible, and they will actually use the same sort of metrics (like DALYs, QALYs) that healthcare systems like the NHS use! There was never the idea that mosquito nets were the best things ever, and everything else was a waste - orgs like Givewell always have recommended multiple charities. They don't believe they have 100% proof that a charity is the best - they only have their best estimates of where the best places are to donate, and they admit this! They are always on the lookout for new charities and causes. The idea that EAs never give money themselves is absurd, the majority do donate, and significant amounts, e.g. 5-10%+ of their incomes. I agree that access to clean water is extremely important, it saddens me greatly that billions still have no clean water at home. But people are not getting infected by malaria because they have to travel far to get water! Mosquitoes come out at night, to breed, when people are sleeping, and that is when people usually get malaria. People live near where the malaria-infected mosquitoes live. Of course, you could suggest to all these people living in sub-saharan African that they move far away from all ponds, rivers, and swamps - please feel free to start a campaign for that if you feel that's a more effective way of preventing malaria infections. "movements like 'effective altruism' are full of racist shitlord techbros and financebros that don't know or care about the complexities faced by communities struggling to exit the colonial damage done to them. what most of them seek to do by controlling the narrative around charity / aid is basically just colonialism 2.0" There sadly are some racist people who consider themselves EA. But it's completely wrong to characterise the movement in this way. That some people like EA and also are racist does not mean that ideas of the EA movement. The vast majority are earnestly trying to make the world better, and they make personal sacrifices to do this. Go read about malaria, and mosquito nets, and find out how many people's lives have been saved
This is ironic considering one of the major example of failures in the charity space EA mentions is Playpumps by WaterAid which had little to do with actually improving access to clean water.
24:50 thanks for spotlighting direct cash giving --- donations will go straight to African families in need, no strings attached 💸
Much better than donating shoes and crashing the local cobbling industry for sure
I was afraid you'd have to retract a recommendation.
Same
yeah i was hoping he wasn't gonna mention justdiggit
@@SoCalledSwitch I know nothing about just digit other than it's advert has a massive American mobile in it
@@abyssaljam441 huh
Yes, that is how clickbait works
It’s almost like the best way to tackle poverty is to give people money, the best way to tackle homelessness is to give people houses, the best way to tackle bad health is to give people healthcare.
I get the feeling extreme wealth inequality may be a... bad thing?
No no, obviously we just need to keep giving rich people more money until it trickles down to where it's needed. It'll work eventually, really! 🤡
No way, that's woke broke communism and so on..
@@apennington8165 it works for their inheritances
Almost like... to each according to their needs, somehow? Hmm, that seems vaguely familiar.
Remember, Africa is not the only place where poverty exist, Latin America is another place I would really want to see this charity taking place
in fact i would say the poverty in america is ten times more important than any of that.
@@GhostScout42?
@@alliesakatI would disagree with their statement that poverty in America is “more important” than any other poverty- but, maybe they’re trying to point out the irony that some people point to poverty in Africa when there are homeless people at their own doorstep and streets…
People focus on Africa over South America because it's poorer, so every dollar spent goes further towards any form of charity.
I can bet they both speak Spanish as their native language as do I, we tend to be greedy down here in LATAM and if we see a chance to outgrow others or pull them back down most of us won't hesitate, I've seen it first hand
15:20 who the hell would scoff at repairing a house!? The 3 most basic needs are food, water and shelter. A house is shelter, a literal basic need!
Reminds me of the classic Ken M (satirical for those who don't know) post that went like "I'm not going to donate money to the homeless, they'll just blow it all on food and shelter anyway"
One of Brazil's most substantial government assistance programs, Bolsa Família, is not quite but pretty close to a direct cash transfer.
It has conditions for receiving, such as enrolling your children in school (we are supposed to have accessible public schools and transportation to them) and not submitting them to child labour, and there are plans to restrict the receiver accounts from using the money on gambling, but, that aside, it's up to the receiver's discretion.
It, apparently, is even a net gain of money to the government because of how much it increases consumption and makes the community's economy run, overall netting even more money than input through taxes
Yeah any benefits, charity, and donations given to poor people in any country will always lead to that same money circulating in that country's economy (because they have to use the money to buy something, right). So it's a benefit not only to the individual person who received it, but also to the whole community around them, and the entire country they live in.
This is also one of the reasons UBI can work better than people believe; because all that money is not just dumped into a black hole, but inevitably circulates in the country's economy, and slowly returns to the government where they can hand it out again!
There is a problem with the version of this video uploaded to Nebula. Thumbnail shows 28:12 but In the player it is only 17:21 (stopping mid sentence).
I'm getting the same issue
Same
i was also very confused by this
Same here
This has just been fixed! Thanks for flagging it
Thanks for highlighting this charity and explaining the concerns you had! When I'm less broke, I'll definitely have them in mind
Sounds like we are for a few years definitely more in the category of "will have more impact if I dedicate my energy to spreading awareness at scale... and thus eventually millions of USD from will find their way to the EA or "the 1%" movement" ❤️ be well and rather work on spreading awareness, what's Your life savings few times over is someone's spare change and vice versa in third world countries. ❤ But sadly can't do everything alone dear friend 🙏🏻
A friend of mine started last year, instead of buying gifts for his friends, wanted to donate that money to a guy who lost his job so he could buy Christmas gifts for his children, best money I've ever spent. I have no problem with this charity either, its not much, but I won't do nothing.
I always worry about the work of charities and whether donations go to a good cause, so thank you for doing what I don't have the time for :)
+
You might to want to look into GiveWell, which does a lot of work in evaluating charities, whether they're effective at their stated goal, and how impactful their actions are. Obviously it's going to have the problem that not everything can have a number put on it, but they still check things that are useful to know: how much overhead the charity has, how much effort it makes to prevent corruption, etc.
9:30 this is why I dont like the concept of charity. it really bugs me that individuals, often those with less than those who have the most, have to give to those with even less, just because we can't organise and -overthrow- R...einvent that system.
We have a global system of production that could adequately support all humans. It needs to be used to that end.
The concept of charity is in no way exclusive, or even antagonistic, with radical systemic reform. People like helping others, and naturally those with common values create organization to pursue these goals. Charity is just an efficient way to help people, and is unlikely to ever leave given the environment limitations of a post-scarcity society. Sorry if I misunderstood
@@connormcgee4711 No, not at all, and thanks for adding. I was indeed referring to a rather narrow conception and your point is well taken and welcome. cheers
@@connormcgee4711in theory yes, in practice, in our current world, no.
Most charities are highly ineffective at helping people, often spending way more on advertisement than what goes to help people
@@ThylineTheGay The proportion of expenses is truly unfortunate, and it should be kept in mind, but organized giving has advantages.
If the cause I want to support is poverty in my city, there is a serious argument that I should invest all my resources directly, into one of my students' families who is struggling for instance. Thus, all of my money is going towards the cause.
However, proportion is not the only concern. Impact is. I do not know folks in parts of the world that need serious help, and the amount of time I spend to build those relations in unfeasible in my current life. Thus, if my money has a greater impact in a place out of reach, and has a 25% return on investment it is still more efficient, provided the effect is 4x what I can do directly. This does not take away from your note, but I wanted to clarify.
This video help raise some things people should think about when supporting charities. I work for a very small charity, and we struggle with donations and grants. The problem is we don't provide "money" or stuff. We provide counseling support to families where a child has an eating disorder. So the delivery would be the counseling and support, FREE education to the med school on the subject, and advice on how the system works (or not). But from a traditional metric, all our expenses are "back office", because all the "workers" are volunteers. So we need money only for Telecommmunications, Website, training of the Volunteers sometimes. So 100% of your donations deos not go directly to the prople we are supporting, and that prevents donations.
I know a few people who work for NGOs and that's such a big problem in all of them. It's just a sh*t metric but people hold on to it.
@@jojo-pkhonestly think it is a metric that was intentionally drawn attention to by the media class in order to kill small charities.
Wow. With that intro, I *really* wouldn't have predicted this video was gonna be about GiveDirectly. Good to see some EA rep.
So what if they used that money to improve their housing? Maybe without their improvements it would be worse and they would spent more, like perhaps the before the improvement they get constant leaks or an inefficient electrical supply.
On top of that, a portion (maybe all) of the money spent on improving the house went into the local economy thus going towards that 2.5x factor.
*cough* UBI *cough*
The biggest issue in places like africa is that their poverty isn't caused by lack of capital. It's an issue of politics, you can't build wealth in the midst of conflict where collaboration and trade can't take place.
It was only a quick mention, so easy to miss, but he said that they only work in areas that are currently stable. Like the rest of Africa, after putting aside whatever parts you're thinking about. (Note: Africa is a continent, like Asia and Europe)
and yet western companies still can set up their mines, factories and trade routes to this countries and then there's foreign tourists who travel there for hunting exotic animals just for fun
Africa is a big place
In the most early days of helping Africa, money ended up at governments in Africa and well, that money did not end up being used for the intended purposes to say the least
Fixed it for u: _"poverty isn't caused by lack of capital. It's an issue of politics"_ _"in places like __-africa-__ EVERYWHERE ON THIS PLANET"_
Trying to discuss this topic anywhere on this platform mostly ends with people sending me many 👎or comments that I'm on either end of the extremes of the political/economic spectrum - which is kinda funny, but overall means my posts are suppressed.
The impulse to try to track the effectiveness feels very natural, that's the way I was educated. But when we do this, there's something that creeps in.
The question that got me on board with these kinds of charity is this one :
Do you want to help ? Or do you want to buy control over poor people's expenses ?
That second option feels dead wrong to me when said this way.
I don't think I've ever felt less seen while watching this channel, but in sort of a good way. The options you mentioned for what viewers might think were "better" uses were downright shocking to me. I suspect even the study of whether people will buy booze just seems like a way to convince potential donors rather than a reasonable thing to study.
I think it's a very neoliberal thing for people to need proof that giving money directly is a good thing.
People have a right to spend money on whatever the hell they want, if that means spending it on vices then that's entirely understandable. We don't expect middle class people to give up on things they enjoy, why the hell should we be moralising about how the poor spend their money? People deserve to live their life how they see fit, and that's all that should matter.
@@SashaTremayne >We don't expect middle class people to give up on things they enjoy
You... come from a more small-l liberal culture than me, it appears. Sure, it gets worse the poorer you are, but if there's a point where the moralising stops it's well above middle class. Like, in some cultures only the rich are allowed to have fun, in others no one is (but if you're rich it's easier to get it under the radar e.g. you have a nice house to drink in, not a street corner).
YESSS GIVE DIRECTLY! I'm very glad you did your research and chose to work with them!
Finally I have a charity that I can fell comfortable donating to. Thank you so much Simon
The crux of the argument is
"What would *YOU* rather have in terms of support? Capital or some kind of items?"
Freedom of choice is a hell of good argument.
remember you can always increase your impact by donating through your country's local version of the charity and then when filing your donation tax rebate, select, donate my rebate. multiply your impact by 1.33x
Anyone got a link for the philosophical video referenced @4:40?
Abigail Thorn's channel "Philosphy Tube", it's called "The Rich Have Their Own Ethics: Effective Altruism & the Crypto Crash (ft. F1nn5ter)"
@ thanks!
The criticism against it sounds very similar to peoples attacks on supports for the homeless. “Why help them with money when they will just use it on drugs and alcohol” it's just people applying their or prejudices against people they don't know in situations they don't understand.
Yes, the old adage is “Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime”, but in the real world that man still needs to eat every day before you have taught them how to fish.
And that's what people need, they need that up front support so they can get by until that longer form systematic change can happen.
This kind of instant and direct aid is a sure fire way to give people the help they need to get by before that longer form change happens.
They also need a fishing rod, gear, a place to fish that has enough fish in it to sustain them, and the fish aren't filled with pollutants that would make them sick.
Just teaching someone to fish does almost nothing.
"Teach a man to fish" is also fairly unrealistic to us, a social species which relies on community support. As civilizations we have always relied on groups of people to support each other, because on average it's impossible for an individual to be self-sustaining and separate from everyone else.
That's the big neoliberal myth that has ruined so many countries in the past decades. The idea that you should have "individual responsibility" and that "there is no society, only individual people" and that you're a failure if you rely on other people to survive. We all rely on other people to survive (both physically and mentally), all the time!
I didn't like how you spoke negative about the traditional NGOs. Imo you made it sound like they're not that trustable. A general mistrust in charities will in the end hurt all of them, you should've avoided that.
My attitude when handing cash to someone is that if buying booze helps a person find a modicum of comfort while living in extreme discomfort, who am I to tell them they shouldn’t?
While I would expect it to be able to combat extreme poverty and I have heard about it before. I think it could be very helpful. One thing I would not ever call it would be a climate charity. In general, the more affluent people seem to be the more energy they consume with all the associated climate effects. Doesn't mean it's not valuable. It can certainly help. I would expect it to have good knock-on economic effects for the rest of the local community.
I think the point is that its helping communities become more climate resilient rather than focusing on climate mitigation. Like you say the wealthier people are more responsible but its the poorer communities that will feel the impact of the climate more.
Hey Simon, just an FYI, the video on Nebula is broken (it's only 17' long somehow ?)
came here to say this
Yes we're working on a fix! Things are just slow this weekend due to thanksgiving and me having a few things on
@@SimonClark No rush! 🙏🏻 Got to admire You all!
15:00 because starting a different business is risky and buying a munch of land is worthless if you don’t have the knowledge or tools to work that land.
People (like me) think nothing of investing in companies.
This is investing in people.
There is great economic AND social benefits to investing in people.
Thanks for pointing that out, it is an important thing to consider, especially when watching governments spend lots of OUR money dithering at COP every year.
Hey, I'm not sure if this is just on my phone or what, but your Nebula upload of this video cuts off at 17:24. Even though it looks like 28 minutes is there.
For me, your Nebula upload stops at 17:25, just before the start of the second part. It also shows that as the full length of the video. If it isn’t just me, someone should look into that.
GiveDirectly is a quintessential 'effective altruist' charity.
People in rich countries always feel like they'd put that money to better use, and then we buy houses that are too big in from which we drive with ridiculously large and expensive vehicules to buy too much of very cheap, poorly made stuff that we didn't need that much to begin with.
Something that worries me is, within these communities, what prevents criminals from taking the money from recipients? A bit how we often hear that giving to beggars often ends up feeding local crime because they manage all the beggars
And that situation is nuanced too. Beggars will often organize or work for someone organizing them because that's the best (or even only) way of making enough to survive. Organizing also safeguards earnings because quite often police will regularly come by and confiscate the money. So they have someone going around collecting from the beggars. Usually the same person who drops them off and picks them up after a few hours (because it would be even more difficult to get to a good spot on one's own).
The optics are bad and I'm sure there's a lot of abuse because it's inherently outside the law. It's not always bad people doing it but also the situation forcing people into "criminal" behavior to survive.
Truth is, beggars shouldn't exist because societies shouldn't let people down like this. That would be the best way to cut off revenue to criminals who take advantage of the people who are forced to beg to survive.
@jojo-pk I absolutely agree, but I wonder if something similar happens to recipients of direct aid
Climate defiance, those guys are doing the lords work
Imagine if a charity in Africa donated cows to the homeless in New York because they thought they knew better.
I'm reticent to say this, as I no longer identify as an anarchist, but I still have a lot of sympathy with its ideals and see this as perfect proof that the empowerment of the most deprived should not just be financial or an improvement of living conditions, but that true empowerment can often come from trusting people and enabling them to make decisions for themselves over what affects their lives. This is fab, thanks so much for this video
Sad to hear of your departure from the philosophies of anarchism. What made you change your mind?
@@najunix Don't get me wrong, I still agree with the fundamental anarchist principle that hierarchies aren't self justifying and if they can't justify themselves, they ought to be replaced by horizontal organisation. My issue is with how anarchists apply this principle in practice.
In short, they don't. They don't actually ever give any of the particular hierarchies they despise any opportunity to justify themselves, or even attempt to consider on their own why these certain hierarchies might be justified in certain situations, eras or locations. Certain hierarchies such as landlords, police officers, bosses and politicians are viewed as inherently unjustifiable, evil even, not because they can't potentially justify themselves but because of the level of power these positions yield. To put it simply, in practice anarchists don't reject unjustified hierarchies, they reject hierarchies as a whole. Bakunin can give his boot maker caveat all he wants but that's not so much an authority in a hierarchical sense, that's a person with expertise who can't even hold onto your boots without your consent as a customer, not as an employee.
What first revealed this to me was the fact that anarchists are often unable to give a realistic alternative to the hierarchies they wish to tear down. Frankly, if you're unable to come up with a realistic alternative for the hierarchy you wish to dismantle then you're inadvertently justifying the hierarchy's existence.
What I've found over and over again is when you challenge an anarchist to suggest a workable alternative to a given status quo, they'll defer to the usual excuse that it's not up to them to come up with a solution, as it ought to be up to the future workers to decide democratically on an alternative. And yeah, I get it, it shouldn't be up to some random thought leader to decide what an anarchist based organisation should look like on behalf of the worker's collective will, but to be a realistic ideology it ought to be able to give a plethora of different alternatives to at least prove that workable alternatives actually exist.
Could say more but can't be arsed to type! I hope what I've said makes sense. I still love the idea of as many coops and as much direct democracy as possible, I just think that a lot more studies and practical examples of coops need to be in place before I can give it my full blessing again. I would like to move towards it, but we're nowhere near the point of being able to justify some full scale revolution for it. Most people don't even know what anarchism even is, let alone support it. It would be beyond ironic to impose it on a population given it's all about letting the people decide.
Those of you who have incomes above the poverty level may donate to such worthy causes. Those of us who have incomes well below the poverty level need to inviest in ourselves and our families.
What is meant exactly by "Where markets exist"? What would be a situation where there would not be a "Market"?
Where would you recommend donations to go if you'd rather go for climate mitigation, instead of adaptation and impact?
I tend to give as much as I can afford to similar causes. However, it bothers me quite a bit that there is this class of people that sit on unimaginable amounts of money and assets like dragons on their hoards. They could alleviate the problem a lot more than I ever could, but apparently choose not to do so.
Was just looking at a book on GoodReads and saw that you read it so came to check on your channel after years and your just posted : 0 great video will now fall down a rabbit hole and watch some more
Simon, the Nebula version of this video fails just before the 18 minute mark for me, can you check that there isn't something wrong on the back end?
My concern with all of these larger organization like red cross etc. is overhead. Adding all this bureaucracy just seems highly inefficient. What percentage of the donations is lost on overhead cost?
Percentages "overhead" is a really, really bad metric. All of that "overhead" money is not lost. It is used to enable the existence and operations of an organization that's helping (sometimes millions of) people all around the world. Overhead is a necessary part of running any organization and without it nobody would be able to so anything.
I know people who work in such organizations and this metric is one of the things really hindering their work. It's making organizations less effective because they not only have to get approval for stuff like buying printer paper, they also have to waste time on documenting and justifying every little thing I wouldn't ever spend a second on in a for-profit company (including the purchase of printer paper). It's such a waste and it's hindering and slowing down their actual work, ie the support they're providing. All in the name of "efficiency".
@@jojo-pk That makes no sense. Every for-profit company cares about overhead cost, and they must. What you are describing is a symptom of ineffective management, not a symptom intrinsic to dealing with overhead costs.
In what way does direct donation of cash to people fix climate change?
Rich people know for a fact that poor people will waste any money given to them - why? Because if you give rich people money rich people will waste it. Poor people know that if you give other poor people money they will spend it on something absolutely essential because what they need are essentials.
You know, on top of everything you showcased in this video, I'm going to give you a huge kudos for saying "I was wrong". This is such a rare occurrence (in my experience) with influencers and such
Money is the institutionalized memento of an incomplete exchange of resources among equals and appears 'out of nothing' - by one of the two parties making a promise to deliver later while the resource 'giver' accepts that promise for as long as is needed.
If people lack money it is a problem of our societies not giving them credit, not trusting them to be able to keep their promise.
Another sub-story is that any promise can only be kept for a limited time span - our existing money does NOT reflect this fact, which leads to banks not lending money to poor people or all the other stuff that doesn't work - because it's not 'profitable'.
Most people in the world are not poor because of being stupid with money, so giving cash handouts will likely result in some sane choices for spending it. However, there are some issues to consider:
1. The scale of the problem: $10B sounds impressive, but considering there are billions of poor people it is peanuts on a per capita basis. So either it has to be very selective to make a meaningful impact with a small range, or be diluted and hardly have an effect.
2. Most poverty stems from lack of investments in education, healthcare, infrastructure as well as massive corruption in the political system. So, giving cash will alleviate some direct effects for some people but will never solve the systemic causes of the problem.
3. Notwithstanding my introduction, there are definitely cases where money will be spent on beer, gambling, and other counter productive issues. Earmarked donations, or having some sort of checks on spending, might sound paternalistic but in reality will contribute massively to positive outcomes.
It's good to hear you're researching a sponsor before entering into a partnership, but please also follow up and make strong reporting and transparency requirements for it. How much overhead is spent, are the accounts for specific projects audited independently, etc etc.
Hey Simon, thanks a lot for this content! I was wanting to know more about which charities to donate to, since I don't really feel like I have the means to research properly myself. After watching, I gave a one-time donation. In your research, did you also find charities that work with euros? GiveDirectly only uses dollars, which means part of my donation ends up just paying the exchange fee. Also, I'd really like to find a charity that is best set up for monthly payments (which I know GiveDirectly also has but because of dollars I didn't feel comfortable to). If not, maybe a future video can be looking into those?
Most parts of Africa lack a lot of infrastructure to drive a more successful economy (roads, trains, navigable waterways, electrical grids, etc.). As an aside, this is a great thing, raising people out of poverty. But any economic improvement almost always comes with a larger carbon footprint (ex: China, India). So great for humanitarian reasons, but not a "climate change" fund.
Why is y'all's solution always a road- just gets sum bicycles
The first time i heard about unconditional cash transfers was from the guy who made the “grabby aliens” videos and i was sold. Glad to see more people are finding out about this
This is a phenomenal video, Simon! I already knew about the power of direct cash transfers like Give Directly does, but I'd never really considered how it could be an effective means of building climate resiliency for those most unfairly effected by climate change. Thank you very much for sharing!
I agree, being a marble IS important. Where do I go to get Marble-ified
IDK if you've talked about it before, but you probably should have mentioned the large issues with "effective altruism"
Sorry if you did, I haven't watched the full video yet, just heard you mention it in a positive way
If we let people use money to increase their wealth or *shutters* for pleasure, then what will motivate them to accept to working conditions at my cobalt and emerald mines!?
What does this have to do with the climate or with "climate charity"?
I agree overall, but find it a conundrum and morally not as clear cut as you make it seem. On the one hand, yes, people in extreme poverty obviously understand their socioeconomic environment and their immediate needs. Clearly. On the other hand, we see here in our rich countries where education is available to everyone, how people make really bad personal finance decisions and finding themselves in debt traps all the time. So, is it really racist and colonial to think that in a country with little to no education people who are stuck in extreme poverty may not know how to use money effectively? I don't think so. Anyways, as I agreed in the beginning, the experience of people from rich countries does not fit the reality of people who live in extreme poverty. Apart from that, I agree that you probably do more good by valuing their ability to make decisions for themselves more than my own worries about whether my 10EUR donation is wasted or not. I think that's the most important point. And I extend that to my contribution to social services for people who receive unemployment support. Just let them have it and live the most dignified life they can afford with it.
Not all of the reasons people have for doubting another's choices may be racist. But in reality lots of them are.
Colonizers *have made* these nations poor. You missed this link?
I see that concern, but I think it's comparing two very different situations. In the countries where GiveDirectly operates, the access to financial services is very limited and often not available at all.
I have no doubts that predatory lending services would wreak as much havoc in poor countries as in rich, but the situation they are currently in is far from there right now.
Yes, yes it is.
If you're living in extreme poverty you will _have_ to know how to spend your money effectively, there's no other option
I don’t understand the opposition you make between effective altruism and give directly. Effective altruism has supported cash transfers for a long time (against the kind of moralizing mainstream charity attitude you described very well), as it was shown to be very effective. For example, Give directly has been a top charity on givewell a lot of times for years, so I wonder where you got that idea?
Yeah, this part feels like Simon is saying "oh but I'm not with _these_ creepy nerds" to legitimize his praise for GiveDirectly. It's a little off-putting.
Effective altruism is an extremely obvious idea that is bizarrely unpopular because of its connection with silicon valley dweebs who everyone hates.
EA sometimes comes up with other less good ideas that are counter to the points mentioned in this video
I think it's mostly just a response to most people hearing about Effective Altruism in the context of extremely dodgy multi-billionaire (with clearly narcissistic and/or misogynistic personalities in some cases) tech bros like Altman, Bankman-Fried, and Musk etc etc.
The term carries a lot of negative baggage for most people who have heard of it but not dug into it.
@@Juttutin it’s not just baggage, there are plenty of people in EA with insane views. Aschenbrenner seems to be generally well respected on the EA forum and his directly stated belief is “we should stop all climate change investment ASAP and invest into natural gas plants so we can beat China to AGI.”
This sounds great. Right up until it blows up in a few years and you remember why those rules got put in place.
I think I've heard about this before on an episode of Planet Money...
Oh that's why Give Directly sounded familiar.
Omg you mentioned Durrell I live near Jersey zoo
So you turned a sponsor spot into 30 min video.
I think it is a very bad look for a channel I thought to be very scientific to make this advertisement without mentioning any of the downsides. Really disengenuune
Money¯o recently interviewed one of the guys who demostrates the rigourous effectiveness if this method.
Interesting! But doesn't this cause a lot of inflation? Generally, giving people money without there being more products or services would just lead to inflation, wouldn't it?
You could have saved half an hour and said unconditional cash transfers. I have known for decades this is the best option for countering poverty. Once a person gets past their stereotyping discrimination and prejudice mindset it's obvious the poor themselves are best placed to manage donations as they see fit.
No kidding about the Effective Altruism types and "the ick"... too tied up with the techbro world and extreme Libertarian/ancap ideas, plus a lot of them have gone almost straight to deciding that the most important problem to solve is AI taking over the world, and thus the most effective thing to spend donations on is preventing/controlling that.
I like give directly and talked more positively of them before but became a bit more hesitant when I learned that a Tory was the president of the charity from 2022 - 2023.
Makes me skeptical whenever a Tory is near anything 😅 I support the general idea of cash transfers but there’s a weird amount of libertarian, tech bro, similar weird people in those charity spaces
Thank you for calling out effective altruism.
Post-climate clarity.
Simon Clark is a sexy seagull. 🍟
Hi Simon, Thank you for making content. We seldom take into account need of other people. Thats core of humanity.
Seems a great way to ethically give in general to do good. However, it also seems a poor way to spend one's money to fight climate change. For climate change charities one's money should be certain to be invested in negative to low carbon technologies like helping people get solar, wind, microgrids, electric cooking, heat pumps, electric vehicles, electric farm equipment, investing in regenerative farming, habit protection and or restoration, and the like. These seem to be the best ways to help people, build wealth and resilience, and do so in a way that builds towards a carbon negative world.
yoooooo thanks for taking on this topic!
If you are in poverty, you are most likely to buy food or clothing.
At most we can give advice, if they need something technical done. Like those pipes.
"Top down charities for poor countries are colonialism" is definitely a good pitch for another Abby video lol
i believe you to be a truthful person, i trust that you do effective research, but i cannot fully trust a video that is paid for by the organization the video is about. i hope that this is understood. if this video wasnt sponsored by givedirectly i would be much accepting of them as an effective charity.
I think it is a very bad look for a channel I thought to be very scientific to make this advertisement without mentioning any of the downsides. Really disingenuous.
And I think it's also a bad look to criticize someone for not mentioning downsides, then yourself proceed to not give even one example of some of the downsides he left out. Especially if they're bad enough that they might change people's minds about donating.
Sure every plan has downsides, but nobody here can make a more informed decision if we aren't given any new information.
@HumbleWooper I agree with you on the fact that providing the downsides would be more beneficial. However, I am not a climate scientist, nor am I educated enough in this field to be able to provide more value than a quick google search would yield you.
This is very different than a climate scientists praising this charity for 30 mins straight to an audience that, just like me, relies on his honest information, as I am not a climate scientist myself. After all, that is why I would watch this content.
I also want to say that I don't think GiveDirectly is a bad charity, but rather that I expected a more balanced and neutral perspective, instead of this blatant advertisement.
I will close this comment out by giving the results of my very brief research, noting that I am not an expert, so please do not take this at face value, but rather do your own research.
The first thing I found was a number of articles describing a case of fraud and theft in the Democratic Republic of Kongo, where a lot of people were promised money that never came as GiveDirectly paused their program (after promising the money) after just under a million dollars was stolen from their funds. The affected people had to take out loans etc., as their plans could not wait for the rest of the money to finish, and were never reimbursed for it. To me, this was very striking, as simon even mentioned how fraud and theft was a problem in other charities, but apparently not in this one. Leaving cases like this out of the video is just straight disingenuous and is a result of him getting paid by GiveDirectly in my opinion. He also made it look like basically all of the money went straight to the people in need, which is simply false (about 83%) is given to households.
The second item of concern I found was the cost-effectiveness. Simon said that cost-effectiveness is hard to quantify, which seems logical to me, however, multiple online sources have concerns of the longevity of the consumption gains and where the money will ultimately end up. Also, Simon tried to frame this charity as a climate charity, which for me is just very far-fetched. The cost-effectiveness seems to only be competitive when your aim is to combat poverty. It seems to not be cost-effective when your aim is saving lives, mitigating effects of climate change or stop climate change.
@@Theimtheimtheim oh wow maybe he needs to do more research into it thanks for letting us know bestie c:
Great video, actually breaking down you "global north supremecist" views. Teaching people why that is wrong! Lovely stuff!
Ofcurse they dont waist the money they take the transfer as an opportunity to better there lives.
Yupp, this makes sense.
This was a very needed explanation!!
Social inclusion
EMPOWERMENT
So happy to have found your videos really gives me hope
The average person in rich countries has done so much harm to the world through their pollution, some reparations are definitely in order. Unfortunately, we have a very selfish and gluttonous culture
Speak for yourself!
@@pedrolopes3542 That makes no sense. I'm calling out what people do. I speak of the evidence. What, am I not supposed to call out the things that rich countries demonstrably do? If you're doing what you can to reduce your pollution and to compensate people for what pollution your lifestyle creates, that's one thing, but then you probably wouldn't be so offended. Clean up your act and behave like an adult.
Bravo, sir! 🎉😊
What do you think about the problem of increasing suffering in this manner?
The humans spending money on food which is from animal agriculture and doing the animal agriculture themselves increases the suffering of the animals being exploited, unless you have structures to make them aware of plant based agriculture being environmentally and economically efficient (or you somehow don't value the animals either at all or comparatively to the humans).
And while I think they can have a justified reason to exploit an animal for their survival, you are the one giving them money without any education and thus are responsible for the increased suffering.
One concern I do have about this:
A sudden large injection of money into a specific economy,
Doesn't this massively spike in inflation?
Completely counteracting the intent of the idea?
More cash flow does not automatically cause inflation. Especially in this situation portrayed here, where an entire community had so little it didn’t even function as an exchange medium. Thats why they all had additional benefit once the ball started rolling and the money basically just cycles through the community.
But im no money person and wonder too when cash injection might cause problems and how to mitigate that
you're not a philosopher but you are a doctor of philosophy...
What's the point of charity if poor people dont know how to manage their income and how to generate money on their own?
They will eat well for a couple of months or weeks and that's it. We are not providing the necessary for long term stability. You think we are, just because "they need money to start getting that long term stability" but im pretty sure it is well known (and it's too much proved by history and common sense) that without education and good nutrition, poor people in poor countries are not gonna make a fructuous and rich experience out of this charity simply because they DON'T HAVE the necessary education and intelligence and responsability to do so.
And we are not even talking about corruption and politics in those countries which are even more concerning than the poverty itself.
Poor people aren't dumb. They lack cash. They often lack formal education too but they're still not dumb.
The thing is, you need to have your basic needs for food, water, shelter, etc. met to be able to think about the bigger picture. If you have to spend all your time on survival you simply don't have time to start something that will improve your situation long-term.
@@jojo-pk
And why aren't they considered 'dumb'? What argument exists to defend that claim? Poor education, inadequate nutrition, deteriorating health, and ingrained negative habits certainly contribute to a lack of cognitive development, and that is simply a fact. While some individuals may be born with higher than average intelligence (compared to their peers) and might potentially overcome the detrimental factors of their environment, the difference is often not significant enough to be truly transformative. At this point, I would need a realistic and replicable example proving that people living under these conditions can transcend such limitations. Extraordinary cases, of course, are not valid examples here, for reasons that are self evident.
To think long-term and effect meaningful change within a country, both natural resources and educational opportunities are essential. However, even if these basic needs are met, there remains an inescapable obstacle: corruption, political manipulation, and ethnic divisions, which are rampant in many impoverished nations. These issues will continue to exploit the vulnerable, perpetuating a cycle of inequality and conflict. War, or some form of perpetual strife, is almost inevitable. Realistically speaking, I do not believe that charity, in the way it is often envisioned, will provide a lasting solution. Perhaps it will bring temporary relief to a few, offering fleeting moments of happiness, but ultimately, that is where it ends
The moral of the story? Well this is what i think:
the situation of impoverished countries in the face of climate change is akin to a ship sinking in the vast ocean. The poorest nations will sink first, yet this individual insists that we expend our resources and time helping those who are already doomed, when in reality they are beyond saving. Our focus should instead be on those nations that have yet to submerge. There, we might still have a chance to save them, as their infrastructure remains far more stable. It is far more pragmatic to direct our efforts toward a cause with a higher likelihood of success than to cling to one that, while seemingly more 'noble,' is far less likely to yield results. Let us concentrate on what is achievable, rather than what feels virtuous but is, in essence, a lost cause.
Such a nice deep dive 👌🏻 many thanks for the research , have to confirm I was donating to EA 10 years ago already. Slightly concerned about their "e/acc" division being out of touch with the other divisions, (e.g. their extremely effective programs preventing Malaria, deworming, Tuberculosis, etc. which I all consider more broad-minded, but who knows ❤ anyways it's great they all exist! Btw charity and giving back aside - they also run the "80,000 hours" project which is dedicated to helping individuals (from developed countries or not) find a meaningful and impactful career 👍🏻 much swell, almost landed a job thanks to them.
I'm pretty sure that e/acc is not a part of Effective Altruism :D The two have almost opposite views on AI.
@mattius999 oh my, that explains so much, thank You for clarifying!
Yes, yes, that is all well and good. Seems amazing, actually!
But, what do I need to do to donate the total collective wealth of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Bernard Arnault, Bill Gates - and anyone else sitting on more than a million USD for that matter - to climate charities?
i watched firsthand the miserable failure of the idea that you can use whatever arbitrary metric to determine the 'effectiveness' of a given act of charity
a few years ago there was this idea that mosquito nets were just the best things ever and all other forms of aids were a waste of money. for real, that was a thing people would say and promote. and they'd constantly just lean on the same metric to 'prove', with DATA, that they were right and everyone doing non-mosquito-net charity was wrong
note that these people didn't actually ever give money themselves or volunteer or in any way get involved in helping. they just stood off to the side, in droves, and shat out this bad faith argument as a means of discrediting aid agencies
malaria is, of course, a huge problem and if a community is being killed by malaria then there's no foundation to build up to improve anything
BUT! the same is true of water access. if people spend all of their time securing safe water, there is nothing to build on (and if they are constantly traveling far to get water, they are more likely to encounter mosquitos that may infect them with malaria)
and the same is true of HIV
and the same is true of literacy
and... etc, etc, etc
movements like 'effective altruism' are full of racist shitlord techbros and financebros that don't know or care about the complexities faced by communities struggling to exit the colonial damage done to them. what most of them seek to do by controlling the narrative around charity / aid is basically just colonialism 2.0
I think this comment makes a lot of bad faith arguments, and misrepresents EA in many ways.
The fact is that many EAs are big fans of Give Directly and direct cash transfers. I have no idea why Simon has framed EA and Give Directly as competing philosophies, or as significantly different approaches to each other. EAs generally like Give Directly because of the good data showing how well it reduces suffering in the world!
EA does not use "whatever arbitrary metric" to determine effectiveness. They try to understand how to reduce suffering as much as possible, and they will actually use the same sort of metrics (like DALYs, QALYs) that healthcare systems like the NHS use!
There was never the idea that mosquito nets were the best things ever, and everything else was a waste - orgs like Givewell always have recommended multiple charities. They don't believe they have 100% proof that a charity is the best - they only have their best estimates of where the best places are to donate, and they admit this! They are always on the lookout for new charities and causes.
The idea that EAs never give money themselves is absurd, the majority do donate, and significant amounts, e.g. 5-10%+ of their incomes.
I agree that access to clean water is extremely important, it saddens me greatly that billions still have no clean water at home. But people are not getting infected by malaria because they have to travel far to get water! Mosquitoes come out at night, to breed, when people are sleeping, and that is when people usually get malaria. People live near where the malaria-infected mosquitoes live. Of course, you could suggest to all these people living in sub-saharan African that they move far away from all ponds, rivers, and swamps - please feel free to start a campaign for that if you feel that's a more effective way of preventing malaria infections.
"movements like 'effective altruism' are full of racist shitlord techbros and financebros that don't know or care about the complexities faced by communities struggling to exit the colonial damage done to them. what most of them seek to do by controlling the narrative around charity / aid is basically just colonialism 2.0"
There sadly are some racist people who consider themselves EA. But it's completely wrong to characterise the movement in this way. That some people like EA and also are racist does not mean that ideas of the EA movement. The vast majority are earnestly trying to make the world better, and they make personal sacrifices to do this.
Go read about malaria, and mosquito nets, and find out how many people's lives have been saved
This is ironic considering one of the major example of failures in the charity space EA mentions is Playpumps by WaterAid which had little to do with actually improving access to clean water.
Donated. Good video Simon
Convinced!
22:00 of course obvious long-term solution is to build the wall😅 (not surprised it was failing even in hypothetical example 😁)
Great vid as per usual 🎉