[nyssos]

> It's not obvious to me that EA's approach to the constraints is more effective than the noble eightfold path or love your neighbor as yourself.

Ok, but that's not the competing option here. However good being a bodhisattva is, being a bodhisattva and saving someone from kidney failure is even better. And most people, of course, aren't going to become bodhisattvas at all: we're only choosing between being ordinary flawed people... and ordinary flawed people who also saved someone from kidney failure.

[giraffe_lady]

Do all EAs donate kidneys? Or even at higher rates than other groups? Everyone thinks their religion makes them better at being good. EAs might be uniquely positioned to demonstrate it statistically, if it's true.

[Crimson_Wool]

The number of people who altruistically donate kidneys per year in the USA is like 1-200, so the fact that Scott knows multiple EAs who did so (and that the kidney donor people are used to EAs) is pretty high-tier evidence that either there are a LOT more EAs than I thought, or they do it MUCH higher rates than the general population.

[scarmig]

Scott alone donating would probably set the rate of altruistic kidney donation at a higher rate among EAs than the general population, at least for this year; there'd have to be around 2M EAs in the USA to match the baseline rate, while the real number is almost certainly significantly lower.