> Why would we do something that benefits far away humans over something that benefits nearby humans? Don't help those foreigners (or people in NY)! Build a wall! Trump 2016! (Same idea, just directed at a slightly different target.)

You've misunderstood his sentence. He's not saying that we should prefer fixing things locally to fixing things globally. He's asking why we should believe that the tech elite can improve life on a global scale when they can't even improve it on a local scale.