NickLaing
Bio
Participation1
I'm a doctor working towards the dream that every human will have access to high quality healthcare. I'm a medic and director of OneDay Health, which has launched 35 simple but comprehensive nurse-led health centers in remote rural Ugandan Villages. A huge thanks to the EA Cambridge student community in 2018 for helping me realise that I could do more good by focusing on providing healthcare in remote places.
How I can help others
Understanding the NGO industrial complex, and how aid really works (or doesn't) in Northern Uganda
Global health knowledge
Posts 16
Comments1040
I don't think "common sense" morality necessarily finds itself in a pickle here.
My common sense morality veers the way of JWS and finds no pickle at all.
"The shortest answer is that I find the "Meat Eater Problem" repugnant and indicitative of defective moral reasoning that, if applied at scale, would lead to great moral harm."
Your version of common sense morality might be different and find a pickle here, but I think it's important to take into account that in a lot of people's minds (I would guess 99.9 percent of humans) common sense morality would lead them to almost out of hand reject this "problem"
For the record again even though disagree with it and find it somewhat repugnant, I think it's a reasonable argument.
I agree it doesn't matter too much like you say, but it is a 30 second change that you could potentially make in good faith which could turn blame away from the people involved and focus directly on the problem itself. There's also a (low chance but real) potential EA future PR issue here with that framing I think...
Vasco could you consider changing the "meat eater problem" to the "meat eating problem" @JWS or "meat eating backfire" as @Michaelstjules suggested? I think it's a more helpful framing.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oFBPxdJf3yboLEq2G/shortform
Thanks Karthik I second this. I usually up vote Vascos posts but this felt like too much.
I for one have had enough of heading the same arguments about the meat eating hypothesis for now. I understand it, think it's a fair argument but don't think it's a strong enough factor to stop me or anyone else saving human lives.
I don't think that virtue signaling by telling most people you donate 10 percent would with week to noon vegans would work well. Most of my friends would consider me a hypocrite for doing that, and longer explanations wouldn't work for many.
Utilitarianism can be explained, but even after that explanation many would consider eating meat and offsetting hypocritical, even if it might be virtuous.
The point of the virtue signaling is the signaling, not the virtue and the cleanest and easiest way to do that in many circles might be going vegan.
I love the insane generosity and personal integrity of the team, donating so much. For me personally this generosity gives me more confidence in the work you do, even if that might be a bit irrational.
I think Practicing what we preach matters both so our lives are integrated and for PR/external confidence reasons.
Wow thanks so much this is fantastic.
I'm not an economist but I resonate with this- guilty as charged. I usually assume national figures are kind of the gospel truth and now that I think about it I'm not sure why...
"Strangely, economists pay a great deal of attention to statistical error when it comes to causal inference or survey data they collect themselves—but very little when it comes to national statistics."
I've also been interested in economic growth as global health EA funding looks to increasingly be funneled into ways to improve this. Given that GDP data is so poor how on earth can we figure out what interventions might reliably improve growth in poor countries?
On the positive front, some surprisingly EA adjacent people were part of the movement which did get slavery banned.
I also think the heavy EA bent against activism and politics wouldn't have helped, as both of those routes were key parts of the pathway to ban slavery in the UK at least (I don't know much about the US)
I love your framing of this cost and agree with your central thesis, that cash transfers to families with sickle cell might be more cost effective than general cash transfers, while not necessarily being the most cost-effective option. It may well be the most cost-effective of the projects you reviewed as well, so kudos for getting in behind this.
My criticism is more that if the NGO has a great database and connection with families with sickle cell, why not use that infrastructure and the money to help the kids medically in ways more effective than a cash transfer? Buying mosquito nets, deworming and I would argue giving proper medical treatment for sickle cell are more cost-effective than cash transfers.
In this case I would boldly predict you could do more good by actually providing the best medical care you could with that money rather than giving it to the family. Also in sickle cell where medical catastrophes are basically guaranteed, cash transfers might well get used up BEFORE catastrophes happen which would be tragic.
I'm assuming this stuff below is not readily publicly available in Cameroon - some of it might well be then you didn't
If I had 47 dollars a month to help kids with sickle cell I would set up accounts with local health facilities to provide these services for each kid.
1) Pay for the basic monthly meds for sickle cell (pen-V, folate, malaria prevention, pain relief) ($8 a month)
2) Most of these kids would benefit from hydroxyurea ($10 a month)
3) Send a motorbike to pick the kid to take to hte health center AS SOON as they get sick - fast access to healthcare is critical in sickle cell ($5 per month)
4) Administrating the project ($15 a month assuming something like one/two people administrating 20 families)
5) A pool of money which pays for catatrophic hospital admissions when needed ($9)
I might be missing something or overstepping with this suggestion but that's my hottish take ;) For background I'm a doctor here in Uganda with a decent amount of experience with Sickle cell.