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by merksoftworks 33 days ago
Nor are the victims of preventable disease to be blamed for being born into countries without functioning governments. I'm happy to pay $37 as a U.S. taxpayer if it saves the life of someone I'll never meet.
2 comments

Note that around $11 of that goes to fund that corruption [1].

To save vastly more lives, and increase the standard of living in the whole country, it might be more efficient for the American government to interfere with the local elections/politics, to help purge the corruption. I believe that sometimes people do need to be saved, but trying to do that by putting bandaids on cuts made by the people actively beating them definitely isn't the way to do that.

[1] https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigation/2020/06/12/...

you don't get to speak for all taxpayers. You can donate your $37
They’re speaking for taxpayers who understand causality and have a planning horizon.
A planning horizon would involve fixing the actual problem, which is the corruption in their government, rather than indirectly supporting it.

I think both are required. Make sure disease spread is understood and prevented and also make it so we don't have to babysit them. They're capable of having a functioning government, right? Or are we just patiently waiting for a revolution from their people?

I mean the idea that the people behind usaid weren’t aware of the corruption and engaged in long-term projects to reduce it is a little unkind.