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Comment by tencentshill | Hacker News Reader

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America is not to blame for them being unable to have a functional government for how long now?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_the_Democratic_R...

Nor are the victims of preventable disease to be blamed for being born into countries without functioning governments. I'm happy to pay $37 as a U.S. taxpayer if it saves the life of someone I'll never meet.

Note that around $11 of that goes to fund that corruption [1].

To save vastly more lives, and increase the standard of living in the whole country, it might be more efficient for the American government to interfere with the local elections/politics, to help purge the corruption. I believe that sometimes people do need to be saved, but trying to do that by putting bandaids on cuts made by the people actively beating them definitely isn't the way to do that.

[1] https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigation/2020/06/12/...

you don't get to speak for all taxpayers. You can donate your $37

They’re speaking for taxpayers who understand causality and have a planning horizon.

A planning horizon would involve fixing the actual problem, which is the corruption in their government, rather than indirectly supporting it.

I think both are required. Make sure disease spread is understood and prevented and also make it so we don't have to babysit them. They're capable of having a functioning government, right? Or are we just patiently waiting for a revolution from their people?

I mean the idea that the people behind usaid weren’t aware of the corruption and engaged in long-term projects to reduce it is a little unkind.

This is one of the unfortunate topics where calculating the costs of providing something is very straightforward, but the benefits (apart from being a decent human being) are near impossible to quantify without making wild guesses about causality.

You have to believe that somewhere down the line, you or your children will benefit from a world with fewer deadly pathogens.

There are two issues: humanitarian aid and infectious-disease surveillance. The former is debatable. The latter, which has left us blinded to the facts on the ground, was pure DOGE stupidity.

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