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by theGnuMe 905 days ago
There is no greater impact than government action, that is taxation and redistribution. It will reduce inequality and raise the standard of living precisely because the government is cost effective.
2 comments

> There is no greater impact than government action, that is taxation and redistribution.

The issue is not which has the "greater impact" in the absolute (where government action may win) but which has the greater impact for spending extra money/resources. It's quite clear that EA's are getting a lot more bang for the buck there than, e.g. government foreign aid ever did.

The measurement is kinda off with EAs though.

First, the effective altruists did a bunch of harm to get all the money, then put it on something focused that not everyone agrees is the best thing to do with it.

They can measure the results of the spending as being higher, but don't account for the harm they needed to do to accumulate the money.

How do you measure spending that will only affect people living in the distant future? This is the problem with the longtermist end of the EA movement.
I can think of counter-examples - so your this-is-fact style of writing is wrong to start with.

What's you're best example of a government that is following your advice?

Do trolls have a right to food? I probably shouldn't be feeding you on off-topic subjects. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html