[rcoveson]

Take a step back even further and it becomes "thinking really hard about how to make humanity the best it can be". Another step back and it's just "thinking really hard". Which, admittedly, has caused a lot of harm!

So is the solution to stop thinking? Or just to stop quantifying and analyzing? Or maybe it's the motivation, humanism, that's at fault, and we should all just worry about ourselves?

[constantcrying]

Mathematics is a far more cruel tool than any other means of thought.

When I was in 10th grade I was a utilitarian, in the philosophy class I assigned numerical values to suffering/happiness and calculated averages to solve moral dilemmas.

I have been wrong about a lot of things in my life, but that idea I certainly was the wrongest about.

Statistics knows absolutely nothing of kindness and hapiness can not be assigned a numerical value. Which didn't stop people from trying and creating unimaginable suffering.

[rcoveson]

Assuming you have even semi-common answers to questions like "what is an example of a great government", "what is an example of a great charity", or "what is an example of a great organization", you'll find it's an entity that makes extensive use of quantification and statistical analysis. Yes, they're as "unkind" as a sword, hammer, or pen. Yes, they have been used for evil. And sure, you can get by without them when you're making family-scale/tribal-scale moral decisions. But when you're chosing who to vote for (at, say, the federal level), or who to donate to (among worldwide charities), you're going to get better results if you quantify, or follow people who you trust to quantify.

[gnramires]

I think I understand you -- just a single number can never capture the richness and complexity of a life. But it's not about just using numbers, it's about doing all the useful stuff, including putting numbers (which is indeed often very important). We can't feel the pain of a billion people -- we can only look at statistics in disbelief that so many beings are suffering so much, and try to make their lives better if we can (and indeed we can :) ).

> Which didn't stop people from trying and creating unimaginable suffering.

Aren't we already creating immense amounts of suffering by the conditions of animals (which often have terrible living conditions), preventable diseases and poverty? Why putting a number on it is more evil than doing nothing?

[constantcrying]

The problem arises if the number does not actually represent the suffering (which it will not). In the end your policy will be about manipulating the system which outputs the number.

The incentives will not be to reduce any actual suffering or solve any real problems, since those might only be loosely correlated with the number. It is extremely easy to reduce the number of crimes, or the amount of people needing psychiatric care. It is extremely hard to increase safety and social cohesion or the mental wellbeing of the population.

[gnramires]

You don't understand one thing: we actually care. Like, we really, really care :) (at least that's my perception of many fellow EAs)

People behind those charities have diverse backgrounds in social sciences, philosophy, economics, and welcome better ways to do more good, better.

If we are not reducing suffering, we will investigate, and try to do better. If we're only decreasing malaria death statistics and increasing death by other means, if we're not effective, we really want to know. Some very skilled social scientists are working on this problem -- many in the field, talking to people, going to poor places where things like tropical diseases happen.

I think giving more weight to the psychological and broader human side is a fundamentally important point as well (which I agree with and have voiced opinions about), but we also have to remember the basic realities of the diseases (like malaria or diseases that cause lifelong blindness!), and the reality of living in extreme poverty. In the end I recommend that you see documentaries about people living in poverty, visit them if you can, to solidify your decision (and tell it to others -- communication is real and important!)

I have just heard of the Happy Lives Institute which seems to be looking at the global mental wellbeing perspective (note: I have done 0 research on them, but the idea seems good!), and I admire Scott Suskind's free website that gives evidence-based treatment guides for mental health issues[1]. Maybe share this perspective on EA forums?

If there was something truly absurd about what I am doing, really sincere criticism, I think I would have heard it more by now, but I welcome further examination of GiveWell charities (I personally really like GiveDirectly as well).

I also believe the point about giving locally.

The power of simply caring, being humane, is really important, and very central to EA. This is different from many other organizations where you're just optimizing a number, where you're guided by ego, by power, or just blindly maximizing something. By fundamentally caring about the result, which is the idea behind effectiveness, we can go much further and be much more robust to our own failures.

[1] https://lorienpsych.com/2021/06/05/depression/

I recommend this source to anyone, Scott Suskind is a professional psychiatrist