[drewblaisdell]

You are misreading me and the poster above. I was simply explaining what he meant and why it could be seen as rational.

The issue is really not as simple as you describe. Of course every life is worth saving, especially the lives of children. However, given a finite set of resources, would you rather save more or fewer children? The amount of money that goes into a long shot at saving a child with terminal cancer in the US would provide clean water and mosquito nets for many children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Am I saying that we should enforce this reallocation of resources? No. But I am saying that it is complicated.

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

[zaroth]

Seriously, how many kids have died from thirst, starvation, or disease curable with under $10 of medication worldwide in the time it’s taken to try to rescue the kids from that cave?

But people love a spectacle. And heroics. So we just have to figure out how to make mosquito netting seem spectacularly heroic...

[caf]

Sure, but was money diverted from mosquito netting programs to pay for this rescue? It certainly doesn't seem that way. Rather it the resources seem to have mostly come from the Thai military.

Why weren't you asking the Thai military to divert its resources to mosquito netting programs last week?

[slededit]

Surely that can't be true either or we'd be spending all our time saving people.

No the truth is more grim, we will save people until it costs more than we are willing to spend. Over time that threshold has increased with our wealth - but it remains in place as it must. Most people don't consciously think about it and it's upsetting to many.

[drewblaisdell]

> Surely that can't be true either or we'd be spending all our time saving people.

Advocates of effective altruism argue that the best of us do this, and that if we all did this, it wouldn't take all of our time.

[slededit]

It would because there are people we don't know how to save yet. The only way to save a cancer victim is to spend all of our time on cancer research. I think what most people mean is that they are willing to go to first order efforts to save people where immediately possible. But that is really just a form of triage and cost saving measure. Practicality still rules in the end.

[drewblaisdell]

I don't think I understand your comment. There are people we don't know how to save, but there are also people we do know how to save. The Against Malaria Foundation, for instance, claims that every ~$3k donated results in the prevention of the death of a child under the age of 5 (https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf#Cost_per_death_averte...).

[slededit]

I'm arguing against the idea that people truly believe "every life is worth saving" even by effective altruism advocates. Effective altruism is only arguing how we should ration the resources we've already allocated to helping people. It doesn't address the fact there is a quota at all.

For people who deal with this professionally the quota is defined monetarily. For the average person its an unconscious decision. But in all cases the amount of resources allocated to helping is not defined directly by the demand.

[drewblaisdell]

> Effective altruism is only arguing how we should ration the resources we've already allocated to helping people.

I'm not sure how to determine what "effective altruism" is arguing, but prominent EA advocates like Will MacAskill and Peter Singer are absolutely concerned with increasing the amount of money allocated to helping people. The conclusion of Singer's most famous argument is that we have a moral imperative to donate most of our money to saving the most lives. Even personally, both live modestly and donate most of their income.