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by gkoberger 2146 days ago
I get your point, but don't be too down on yourself. Nobody is running around the Against Malaria Foundation saying "quick, buy 125,000 more nets!". Rather, they take in money, and they assign something tangible (in this case, a net that's extrapolated to a life) to each donation so it feels a bit more connected.

This isn't to even remotely take away from what Derek did – I've been a fan for years, and this was one of the coolest blog posts I've read in a long time. It's the opposite... I just don't want anyone to feel like they're killing someone every time they pay rent.
2 comments
renewiltord 2146 days ago
Oh no, not to worry. Thanks for your concern, though. It is very kind.

Perhaps undeserved, though. The real realization is that even knowing this, I will not change my actions, i.e. it isn't ignorance. The practice of what I do is that I value an arbitrary human life pretty lowly.

I think if you gave me a live feed of a child dying, I would certainly pay the $5k to stop the child from dying, or the $10k, or the whatever. But even the slightest distance and I wouldn't send $20 over. Odd. I can even visualize the child and it feels a bit bad but I'll still take the super burrito.

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tarsinge 2146 days ago
Personally I have a hard time giving an arbitrary sum, but setting up an automated donation each month that I can forget worked for me, it helps remove the decision aspect.
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garbagetime 2146 days ago
I suppose buying life-saving gear and similar spending is only a medium-sized fraction of the foundation's spending. I wonder what the accurate expected value of lives saved per dollar donated is.
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mquander 2146 days ago
You can see the spreadsheet model GiveWell used to come up with their "dollars per life saved" number here. See the "Bednets" tab for the AMF calculation. With regard to how the foundation spends its money, the only input considered is "dollars donated per anti-malarial bed net distributed" (about five bucks, depending on country), and work proceeds from there to establish the value of one bed net distribution.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zLmPuddUmKsy3v55AfG_...

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