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this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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SneerClub
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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I feel like this is one of those "no ethical consumption" things past a certain point. Directly interacting with the people you're helping and increasing their available financial resources directly does give them more opportunities to work with you and express/meet their own needs, as opposed to the EA model where it's the rich foreigners who know what you need and will give it to you regardless of what you think. That doesn't change the fact that by actively traveling there he's consuming resources and taking resources from that community at the same time, and it's easy to do more harm than good in that sense, but I think the basic idea of "if you want to help, give money at the lowest possible level" is pretty defensible.
Philanthropy can't change the power structures, philanthropy is a band aid that soothe the conscience of the philanthropist.
Aaron and assorted developers can't give the villagers power, because they only have power in relation to the villagers, not in relation to the world trade system. If they want to give the villagers power they need to change the system that gives the villagers a fraction of their earnings per hour.
But then you are back to the usual options. Thirty years of boredom, trying to change the system from within? Protest world leaders and get beaten by police for your troubles (or even sentenced for destruction of police equipment by smashing your face into it)? Join a communist party and play spot the fed?
I guess it's better to join a philanthropy cult, where billionaires can pay you to hang out in a castle and discuss the problems with the poor over some overpriced ethanol.
Wasn't GiveDirectly one of EA's big things and precisely what you're describing here? Unconditional cash transfers