Highlights From The Comments On Capitalism & Charity
Read the original on Astral Codex Ten →
Follows up on
↳ Does Capitalism Beat Charity? — Essay · Jan 2024
Summary
Companion to Does Capitalism Beat Charity? Scott reiterates his near-mode framing ('you have $1000 now, what do you do with it', not a Moral Worth Tournament), engages seriously with VelveteenAmbush's invest-in-S&P-vs-charity ROI argument (three objections: consumption must bottom out, marginal utility of money in the developing world, human-capital compounding), plus charter cities/SEZs, microfinance-doesn't-replicate, social-enterprise, GiveDirectly, and the Druggan money-recirculation puzzle.
Why this score
Quality 68 · Strong. Top of the companion band: real economic reasoning (esp. the ROI-vs-marginal-utility exchange), held just below the 70 parent (ACX-540); much of it engaging others' arguments.
Claude’s paradigm shift 48 · Moderate. Notable: sharpens the near-mode vs Moral-Worth-Tournament distinction + the capitalist-charity evidentiary bar.
Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Within EA-discourse companion; no material effect. =2.