Brian Chau on Effective Altruism; Rob Henderson on status vs. truth; Brad Wilcox and Elizabeth Self on Young Men; Dylan Patel and Myron Xie on Microsoft's capex plans
To your inventory of non-profits, you may add all these new "churches" sprouting up everywhere in my state. They do not resemble actual churches in any particular, physical or activity-wise, so I don't know exactly where the grift lies beyond the obvious real estate advantages.
This makes me laugh because the environmental non-profit with which I am most closely acquainted pays a "sum-in-lieu-of-taxes" in the rural counties where it holds significant land, so as not to be perceived as "starving the school district" in particular among local needs.
I imagine no church no matter how much it's raking in, has ever thought to do that.
(The above-mentioned "churches" - typically just an office building looking thing, newly built, oblique name like "A New Beginning", no outward sign that it's a church, no denominational accountability, rarely any vehicles present - must be a way to squeeze money out of people, or as a tax shield for some shady activity; or perhaps they are set up to inherit the endowment of one of the numerous actual churches that have withered away but as is often the case, still have funds - you have to transfer those to a similar entity, and there doesn't appear to be any desire on gov's part to scrutinize "churches". What's funny is people have always looked askance at "megachurches", understandably, but these newer outfits seem to have figured out a way to scam that doesn't involve offering even those limited church-like services the megachurch does.)
In defense of non-profits, however: they tend to be the sole line of defense against their "government" counterparts. It's difficult to imagine a for-profit entity caring much about *how* government spends its money.
To take a long, long ago successful (to me, anyway) example: the Grand Canyon is not home to a reservoir because of a non-profit.
Non-profits generally supply the only pushback against wasteful and livelihood-eliminating and wildlife-harming dams. Usually unsuccessfully, of course. The tale may be told succinctly by noting that - planned dams are often named for engineers or consultants who work for ... private firms. "Water Hustler Dam."
Interestingly, there is a Church of Christ nearby that has effectively died. (Church of Christ in Texas bears no or only a vestigial relation to whatever is Church of Christ in the North.) There remains I think a small legacy membership who are figuring out what to do with it. There is no pastor, no worship services. It allows others to have meetings of various sorts there. There is a pizza food truck and a coffee truck in the parking lot which I presume pay rent; the latter is a neighborhood gathering point. It has a sign with a new inspirational saying every few days. I noticed a preschool is trying to launch there.
Most ambitiously, the remnant congregation decided to rip out the pavement and turn the overflow parking lot across the street, essentially a city block, into a park for the neighborhood, at considerable expense (engineers and fancy planner and a year's worth of heavy work so far).
"Non-profits were much more likely to be fraudulent, or to simply fail to achieve their goals."
"Even more corrupt than the world of non-profits funded by private donors is the world of non-profits funded by government. Universities are at the top of that list."
I think we have a problem with the use of the words fraudulent and corrupt. I don't see them as at all equivalent. I would think non-profits are more likely to be fraudulent than for-profits, as non-profits are more likely to have outside donors/investors who are the easiest target of fraud. As for corruption, maybe the argument could be made in either direction but I'd need some hard evidence to agree.
As for universities, there are plenty of flaws and problems but I'm not aware of significant corruption, unless we get really creative in how we define that word.
One could argue their indoctrination has corrupted the word university but that's not what Kling states.
As for indoctrination being fraudulent, that just doesn't sound like the right word to me given it's pretty transparent what it is. Corruption akin to bribery seems even further askew. I'm fine with calling it indoctrination but to me simply saying misguided, faulty, or flawed seems more accurate than corruption or fraud.
a: dishonest or illegal behavior especially by powerful people (such as government officials or police officers) : DEPRAVITY
b: inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (such as bribery)
//the corruption of government officials
c: departure from the original or from what is pure or correct
You’re using definition (b). I’m using the word in the sense of definitions (a) and (c). What the “woke” universities are doing is certainly dishonest, and they are certainly departing from what is correct.
As much as I dislike what they are doing, I don't think the word dishonest applies. I don't agree that correct/incorrect applies either. At this point I have no idea if we fundamentally agree or disagree but we clearly prefer different language and labels.
Partially corrupt. Do you believe every single major and class is indoctrination? Or are there still some good classes too?
A friend of mine teaches government at a major midwestern university. He’s concerned about wokeism in the broad sense but also says his day to day experience with students is that they are focused on policy and data, not feelings and virtue signaling.
Certainly not. Nor do I believe that every university has caved to the demands of the DEI industry. However, in many universities even STEM subjects haven’t been immune to Critical Theory dogma. So far, academic organizations have shown little stomach for opposing the obvious corruption that exists.
Re labor force participation: The article cited is like many others that connect a change that happened once to some other change. In the case of male labor force participation, we seem to have a downward trend from the first observation, 1976, through about 2008, then a steeper trend thereafter, with some blips along the way. (using BLS series LNU01300163 and LNU01300163).
If we see cyclical phenomena, it's much easier to make a statistical connection. But with just one change in trend, how many other possible connections could we find? Keep in mind we don't have a theory of the magnitude of the change, or the time lag, so most anything could be at work.
I can't disprove their hypothesis, and I don't doubt it, but statistically literate folks should speak out on the weakness of the connection.
The problem was never hypocrisy. The great lie was in telling themselves that they were smarter and immune to the same corrupting influences that they could fix the world of charitable giving.
Are nonprofits *on average* worse for the greater good than for profits? Perhaps yes, you make a good case.
Are the *best* nonprofits more effective than investing in for profits, for the specific purpose of people who would like to spend their money saving human lives? Probably yes.
I’d rephrase your question to: Do the best non-profits save more lives than the best for profits? I suspect that the answer is no. To take just one example, the for-profit agricultural industry saves literally billions of lives every day.
Good question. My guess is that in “normal” times, the investment in agriculture is probably the best bet, but that in emergencies (fires, floods, earthquakes) a dollar given to (say) Red Cross would save more lives.
It's just hard to believe that buying $5k of Monsanto stock would be sufficient to save a life. That's what it would take to beat givewell maximum impact fund
That highlights a big problem with the free market system - it works efficiently, effectively, and behind the scenes. Charities and NGOs work, when they work, visibly and with much fanfare (the latter being necessary to raise more money). I give $5 to a charity and they give $1 worth of food (the better charities like the Salvation Army would give $4.50) to a poor person. The process is simple and easy to understand.
For a taste of the incredible complexity of the market, check out the classic essay “I, Pencil” (easily found on the Internet).
I get how markets work, but the idea that there's more low hanging fruit for saving lives from increasing agricultural productivity as opposed to intervening against easily preventable diseases doesn't pass a basic smell test.
That said perhaps a stronger case could be made for pharma stock as an EA investment, if the companies are working on diseases affecting low income countries.
Hardly. Subsistence farming, by definition, doesn’t support many people beyond the farmer’s immediate family.
We could add for-profit pharmaceutical companies to the list of life-saving for-profit institutions. If there are subsistence pharmaceutical firms, I’m unaware of them.
And then there’s the transportation industry. Without that, food and medicine don’t get to where they’re needed.
And how about the petroleum industry? Without fuel, the transportation industry can’t exist.
Oh, my bad. Google gave +2 billion people - 25% as the percentage of the population that fed themselves, per a UN report a few years ago.
As soon as we get whatever that number is onto the gravy train - we'll be set. The goal should be no connection between fertility and food, as we will always have oil to move the food where it needs to be.
Fair enough. But a subsistence farmer is not a not-for-profit NGO. As Isabel Patterson wrote, “Production is profit; and profit is production…they are the same thing. When a man plants potatoes, if he does not get back more than he put in, he has produced nothing.”
Rob Henderson makes a very good point about high-status vs. low status truths. Somehow, the Hamas atrocities have landed in the public consciousness midway between high status and low status associations. High-status elites personified by university administrators, left-wing intellectuals, some non-profit leaders and high-status youth seem to have lined up behind Hamas, while other high-status worlds, especially those where Jews have a large presence, have the common decency to condemn Hamas. And even within these positions, we see division and uncertainty as to what is the "correct" view to take. In this strange moment of history, one can publicly cheer Hamas's murder of innocents, and not lose a single dinner invitation. The same can be said for those who defend Israel -- for now.
The other day Tyler Cowen linked to a "reaction to something new" video (YouTube gift to the world) - but instead of small children reacting to Star Wars or young black dudes reacting to e.g. a Dolly Parton song - it was young black dudes reacting to a series of Thomas Sowell clips. I watched a little of it. My husband stopped to listen to something Sowell was saying. I explained the concept: these very young guys, aware perhaps of their ill education via the American public school system, are seeking some new material, and it's Thomas Sowell, so that's cool, right? Race was of course uppermost in their minds and in the conversation.
Though a conservative to the bone, he couldn't feel it was cool.
"If only everybody would stop being so damned self-conscious," was his takeaway.
Well, I offered, maybe it's because they've essentially had this monkey placed on their backs all their lives, having been born after everything went crazy.
I think in his view this narcissism, or self-involvement might be more precise, in relation to belief formation is abnormal and can only make it impossible to live together.
You forgot to attach, "Have a nice day" to that last sentence.
To your inventory of non-profits, you may add all these new "churches" sprouting up everywhere in my state. They do not resemble actual churches in any particular, physical or activity-wise, so I don't know exactly where the grift lies beyond the obvious real estate advantages.
This makes me laugh because the environmental non-profit with which I am most closely acquainted pays a "sum-in-lieu-of-taxes" in the rural counties where it holds significant land, so as not to be perceived as "starving the school district" in particular among local needs.
I imagine no church no matter how much it's raking in, has ever thought to do that.
(The above-mentioned "churches" - typically just an office building looking thing, newly built, oblique name like "A New Beginning", no outward sign that it's a church, no denominational accountability, rarely any vehicles present - must be a way to squeeze money out of people, or as a tax shield for some shady activity; or perhaps they are set up to inherit the endowment of one of the numerous actual churches that have withered away but as is often the case, still have funds - you have to transfer those to a similar entity, and there doesn't appear to be any desire on gov's part to scrutinize "churches". What's funny is people have always looked askance at "megachurches", understandably, but these newer outfits seem to have figured out a way to scam that doesn't involve offering even those limited church-like services the megachurch does.)
In defense of non-profits, however: they tend to be the sole line of defense against their "government" counterparts. It's difficult to imagine a for-profit entity caring much about *how* government spends its money.
To take a long, long ago successful (to me, anyway) example: the Grand Canyon is not home to a reservoir because of a non-profit.
Non-profits generally supply the only pushback against wasteful and livelihood-eliminating and wildlife-harming dams. Usually unsuccessfully, of course. The tale may be told succinctly by noting that - planned dams are often named for engineers or consultants who work for ... private firms. "Water Hustler Dam."
Interestingly, there is a Church of Christ nearby that has effectively died. (Church of Christ in Texas bears no or only a vestigial relation to whatever is Church of Christ in the North.) There remains I think a small legacy membership who are figuring out what to do with it. There is no pastor, no worship services. It allows others to have meetings of various sorts there. There is a pizza food truck and a coffee truck in the parking lot which I presume pay rent; the latter is a neighborhood gathering point. It has a sign with a new inspirational saying every few days. I noticed a preschool is trying to launch there.
Most ambitiously, the remnant congregation decided to rip out the pavement and turn the overflow parking lot across the street, essentially a city block, into a park for the neighborhood, at considerable expense (engineers and fancy planner and a year's worth of heavy work so far).
Every church around here (Boston suburbs) seems to rent space to a daycare.
You make a very good point. It is far more relevant and useful to compare most non-profits to government than to for-profits.
"Non-profits were much more likely to be fraudulent, or to simply fail to achieve their goals."
"Even more corrupt than the world of non-profits funded by private donors is the world of non-profits funded by government. Universities are at the top of that list."
I think we have a problem with the use of the words fraudulent and corrupt. I don't see them as at all equivalent. I would think non-profits are more likely to be fraudulent than for-profits, as non-profits are more likely to have outside donors/investors who are the easiest target of fraud. As for corruption, maybe the argument could be made in either direction but I'd need some hard evidence to agree.
As for universities, there are plenty of flaws and problems but I'm not aware of significant corruption, unless we get really creative in how we define that word.
What word better applies to universities that have replaced education with indoctrination?
One could argue their indoctrination has corrupted the word university but that's not what Kling states.
As for indoctrination being fraudulent, that just doesn't sound like the right word to me given it's pretty transparent what it is. Corruption akin to bribery seems even further askew. I'm fine with calling it indoctrination but to me simply saying misguided, faulty, or flawed seems more accurate than corruption or fraud.
Corruption:
a: dishonest or illegal behavior especially by powerful people (such as government officials or police officers) : DEPRAVITY
b: inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (such as bribery)
//the corruption of government officials
c: departure from the original or from what is pure or correct
You’re using definition (b). I’m using the word in the sense of definitions (a) and (c). What the “woke” universities are doing is certainly dishonest, and they are certainly departing from what is correct.
Not what I wrote.
As much as I dislike what they are doing, I don't think the word dishonest applies. I don't agree that correct/incorrect applies either. At this point I have no idea if we fundamentally agree or disagree but we clearly prefer different language and labels.
Partially corrupt. Do you believe every single major and class is indoctrination? Or are there still some good classes too?
A friend of mine teaches government at a major midwestern university. He’s concerned about wokeism in the broad sense but also says his day to day experience with students is that they are focused on policy and data, not feelings and virtue signaling.
Certainly not. Nor do I believe that every university has caved to the demands of the DEI industry. However, in many universities even STEM subjects haven’t been immune to Critical Theory dogma. So far, academic organizations have shown little stomach for opposing the obvious corruption that exists.
What is the evidence that the constitution of knowledge is more gamed or corrupted than in the past?
Re labor force participation: The article cited is like many others that connect a change that happened once to some other change. In the case of male labor force participation, we seem to have a downward trend from the first observation, 1976, through about 2008, then a steeper trend thereafter, with some blips along the way. (using BLS series LNU01300163 and LNU01300163).
If we see cyclical phenomena, it's much easier to make a statistical connection. But with just one change in trend, how many other possible connections could we find? Keep in mind we don't have a theory of the magnitude of the change, or the time lag, so most anything could be at work.
I can't disprove their hypothesis, and I don't doubt it, but statistically literate folks should speak out on the weakness of the connection.
“In the end, the problem was hypocrisy.”
The problem was never hypocrisy. The great lie was in telling themselves that they were smarter and immune to the same corrupting influences that they could fix the world of charitable giving.
Pride goeth before the fall.
Wisdom
There are just two separate questions here.
Are nonprofits *on average* worse for the greater good than for profits? Perhaps yes, you make a good case.
Are the *best* nonprofits more effective than investing in for profits, for the specific purpose of people who would like to spend their money saving human lives? Probably yes.
Only the latter question is relevant to EA.
I’d rephrase your question to: Do the best non-profits save more lives than the best for profits? I suspect that the answer is no. To take just one example, the for-profit agricultural industry saves literally billions of lives every day.
But does a marginal dollar of investment in agricultural industry save as many lives as a marginal dollar donated to the best charity?
Good question. My guess is that in “normal” times, the investment in agriculture is probably the best bet, but that in emergencies (fires, floods, earthquakes) a dollar given to (say) Red Cross would save more lives.
It's just hard to believe that buying $5k of Monsanto stock would be sufficient to save a life. That's what it would take to beat givewell maximum impact fund
That highlights a big problem with the free market system - it works efficiently, effectively, and behind the scenes. Charities and NGOs work, when they work, visibly and with much fanfare (the latter being necessary to raise more money). I give $5 to a charity and they give $1 worth of food (the better charities like the Salvation Army would give $4.50) to a poor person. The process is simple and easy to understand.
For a taste of the incredible complexity of the market, check out the classic essay “I, Pencil” (easily found on the Internet).
I get how markets work, but the idea that there's more low hanging fruit for saving lives from increasing agricultural productivity as opposed to intervening against easily preventable diseases doesn't pass a basic smell test.
That said perhaps a stronger case could be made for pharma stock as an EA investment, if the companies are working on diseases affecting low income countries.
As does subsistence farming.
Hardly. Subsistence farming, by definition, doesn’t support many people beyond the farmer’s immediate family.
We could add for-profit pharmaceutical companies to the list of life-saving for-profit institutions. If there are subsistence pharmaceutical firms, I’m unaware of them.
And then there’s the transportation industry. Without that, food and medicine don’t get to where they’re needed.
And how about the petroleum industry? Without fuel, the transportation industry can’t exist.
Oh, my bad. Google gave +2 billion people - 25% as the percentage of the population that fed themselves, per a UN report a few years ago.
As soon as we get whatever that number is onto the gravy train - we'll be set. The goal should be no connection between fertility and food, as we will always have oil to move the food where it needs to be.
Fair enough. But a subsistence farmer is not a not-for-profit NGO. As Isabel Patterson wrote, “Production is profit; and profit is production…they are the same thing. When a man plants potatoes, if he does not get back more than he put in, he has produced nothing.”
I like that quote but I don’t expect it would satisfy either Marx or the business wing of the GOP.
Rob Henderson makes a very good point about high-status vs. low status truths. Somehow, the Hamas atrocities have landed in the public consciousness midway between high status and low status associations. High-status elites personified by university administrators, left-wing intellectuals, some non-profit leaders and high-status youth seem to have lined up behind Hamas, while other high-status worlds, especially those where Jews have a large presence, have the common decency to condemn Hamas. And even within these positions, we see division and uncertainty as to what is the "correct" view to take. In this strange moment of history, one can publicly cheer Hamas's murder of innocents, and not lose a single dinner invitation. The same can be said for those who defend Israel -- for now.
The other day Tyler Cowen linked to a "reaction to something new" video (YouTube gift to the world) - but instead of small children reacting to Star Wars or young black dudes reacting to e.g. a Dolly Parton song - it was young black dudes reacting to a series of Thomas Sowell clips. I watched a little of it. My husband stopped to listen to something Sowell was saying. I explained the concept: these very young guys, aware perhaps of their ill education via the American public school system, are seeking some new material, and it's Thomas Sowell, so that's cool, right? Race was of course uppermost in their minds and in the conversation.
Though a conservative to the bone, he couldn't feel it was cool.
"If only everybody would stop being so damned self-conscious," was his takeaway.
Well, I offered, maybe it's because they've essentially had this monkey placed on their backs all their lives, having been born after everything went crazy.
I think in his view this narcissism, or self-involvement might be more precise, in relation to belief formation is abnormal and can only make it impossible to live together.