Comment by samsquire | Hacker News Reader

Comment by samsquire | Hacker News Reader

I have tap water, locomotive engines, industrial factories, electricity, computers, agricultural technology, an abundance of food in supermarkets, pain and drug medication available for ailments and the freedom to earn a living. The capability of buying a litre of oil which has enough energy to do the labour work of 100 people in one day.

The countries that lack these things need some fundamental thing to be sustainable and grow in excess of their inputs. It takes resources to grow resources.

The poverty strucken parts of the world don't have sustainable infrastructure or the capability of building it.

The problem is obvious but nobody wants to talk about it.

If I had responsibility to do something good, it needs to be on my own terms and I decided how it were to be used then maybe I would want to help. But if it is going to be lost to corruption, abuse, drugs then that's not the intended purpose of the investment.

Takes resources to get resources.

Also takes good management. If I'm investing resources, I don't want my resources being pilfered away.

I think the OP is asinine, but damn, it's a good response to this comment.

"I cannot see a 100% perfect way to do exactly the thing I want, thus there is no reason to do anything at all."

Imagine if you applied the same logic to everything in your life.

I think the person you're replying to agrees with the OP.

Okay, but what are you actually going to do? What specific projects do you recommend supporting?

I donate to a Christian charity that gives money, health checks to children to survive at their churches.

The kinds of things that these countries need are large government backed projects with extreme amounts of funding to introduce core infrastructure such as water pipes, hospitals, education curriculums. Things that we in the West take for granted or are even free.

For this to work, Everything hinges upon a high trust, values based society where people WANT civilization and WANT society. That means low crime, low criminality, the availability of work to earn money for food and effective shelter. And mutual good will.

I don't think giving them money and letting them spend it on consumables helps as much as it could.

In the UK parts of our national services are run by foreign companies, as direct foreign investment. They know how to run a railway or hospital or waste disposal.

Governments in the west have enough on their plate, it would take a great deal of investment for a government to instigate a plan to introduce an infrastructural plan in a country that is NOT their own. The corresponding government organisational capability might not even exist in the recipient countries.

What Christian charity is it? (If this is too personal a question to answer publicly, would you be willing to share privately? an email address is in my profile.)

I agree that government investment can be very beneficial. For example, there apparently have been some impressive improvements to medical care in Rwanda.

But it seems like you’re making assumptions that poor people in poor countries are bad at spending their money in ways that will matter. GiveDirectly has some good studies so I don’t really believe that.

Also, is replacing a leaky roof “consumption” or “investment?” How about starting a small business or sending kids to school?

I think the answer is both maybe we don't need one to the exception of the other.

Send them money for food but also help them build a railway, shopping mall or water infrastructure.

What we would do from our perspective might not be the same thing that we would do in their perspective. But obviously we have a perspective of what they need. How we can help them.

Do people suddenly rise up and decide to build water infrastructure or electrical grid or proper housing for everyone in a town?

Takes extreme funding to do both. Would they be willing to listen to what we tell them what to do?

I agree with that. However, some things might be easier to fund with charitable donations than others.

For example, the reason GiveWell doesn't recommend donating for vaccination campaigns isn't because they don't think vaccinations are cost-effective (they are) but because giant organizations like governments and the WHO are funding these things already. It's not a "neglected" cause so it's hard to move the needle by donating there.

I suspect that hard infrastructure like railways are funded by loans from the IMF and maybe foreign aid? I don't know if GiveWell has evaluated that sort of thing specifically.

GiveWell's mission is advising individual donors on which charities they should give money to, which means charities that exist, take donations, are trustworthy, can show effectiveness, and so on. It's not things people could theoretically fund; it has to be practical.

I worry that the amount of money these countries needs is more than what charitable people can afford and the amount of time, skill and work that is needed.

The sheer amounts of investment needed are extremely high. What took the western world 100s of years needs to be invested (time and work) over many years to bring up these places to the level of the west.

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