I agree with the general points in your article here, but object to the use of your term Satanic to describe PEPFAR opposition since there is a revisionist interpretation of the Bible that argues that Satan (Lucifer) was a righteous rebel against God's tyranny in Heaven.
There’s a very simple way to avoid getting AIDS. Not having sex. Or double up on the rubber.
It’s not American taxpayers problem that these people are apparently unable to control themselves. It’s not in their interest either to spend money on it, and thank god that this giveaway ends now.
Is there a better way to spend that money than PEPFAR? I'll take a crack at it. The cost per life saved is ~$4,230. If that same money was put into educating people, I think the cumulative effects would be much better.
If Africa remains at its current level of education development, forever, then it will never develop a self-sustaining medical industry which can PEPFAR itself. If we want Africa to PEPFAR itself, we should focus on education rather than "direct aid."
Direct aid is easy to quantify, measure, and verify. Someone didn't die! Pretty simple. Education is more... ambiguous. What does it mean to be educated? What's the standard? What's the result? Because education is a less discrete good, and is more subjective, and takes a longer time to take effect, it seems less impactful.
My counter argument would be something like this: imagine there is a dysfunction or disease which keeps spreading in a population. You have two options: manage the illness, and nurse people back to health when they get sick, or to cure the disease at the root, and allow people to treat themselves.
In America, we are probably spending too much on K-12 education. There is a point at which educational spending has diminishing returns. However, in Africa, we are no where near this threshold.
Contra Bryan Johnson, I don't think that the highest moral good is "don't die." Death is inevitable, and can't be avoided. When people talk about preventing death, they are really talking about delaying death. The usefulness of delaying death is so that people can live. If people are dying willy nilly all the time, maybe they won't be able to enjoy life as fully.
Here's another extreme example:
Option 1: spend $110 billion on PEPFAR every year for 100 years. Nothing changes. Africa does not develop past its current levels.
Option 2: spend $110 on education every year for 100 years. Exponential economic development. Africa becomes rich and starts to provide foreign aid for America.
The choice seems clear from this long-termist perspective. Now you could say, "how can people be educated if they're dying left and right?" Well, I don't view economic development through education as being the most impactful at the K-12 level, but at the university level. So I think that if you take one million 5th graders, and pay them to enter 6th grade, this isn't as impactful as taking 100,000 12th graders and paying them to enter 13th grade. This is because economies are developed from the top down by skilled labor and managerialism, not from the bottom up by slightly-less-illiterate manual laborers.
Helping random people avoid death I think is less morally good than specifically funding the educational development of the best and brightest, because in the long term, having a functioning economy and government will result in much less human suffering and death than continuously treating the symptoms of poor economics and governance.
While preventing death with PEPFAR isn't a bad thing in absolute terms, I still am not convinced that it is the best form of foreign aid. I think calculating moral good in terms of lives saved is a bit too superficial, from a long-termist view. That said, I would rather maintain PEPFAR as it was rather than totally eliminate foreign aid entirely.
I don’t agree with the proposed replacement to PEPFAR (education seems like cost-effective and tractable), but I certainly agree PEPFAR isn’t *the most* effective way the government could do foreign aid (they could give all the money to GiveWell.
(Btw, I banned that other dude — he was bringing a peculiar vibe to the function.)
Part of the reason education appeals to me is because, in the very long term, it's the only thing that actually reduces human mortality. Like if aliens came down and gave us all magical injections that allowed us to live for 1,000 years, and then they flew away in their saucers, we would feel great for 1,000 years, and then everyone would start dying again. I would rather the aliens give us lessons in science than to give us the fruits of science. And thus, I want to do unto Africa as I would have done to me.
... weird that you conflate the word "Indian" with "native American." Why are you, as a white supremacist, following me so closely? You're like my top commenter.
The program was paused, there’s no intent on aborting it, pun intended. The link to NPR confirms this, while you state the funding was halted. In the very first paragraph, you got the whole fucking thing wrong. Is that the “Fuck You, I’ve Got Mine (interpretation of ‘paused’)”?
Did you know that at the moment of publication of this erroneous article, Trump’s State Department issued a waiver that resumes the distribution of HIV medications? It’s always helpful to have “inside” information, i.e., publicly available the day before publication. Your approach to the subject should have been more even-handed with this newfound information. While a new administration settles in, one which ran on cutting the budgets, one would assume programs might be paused and reassessed—all programs for all foreign aid. PEPFAR is in its 24th year, including 4 years of the prior Trump administration. There was no evidence anywhere Trump’s new administration would halt the program. That’s partisan fear-mongering. Which can be fun at times, I get it. But if that’s your game, why waste your time on an article when you can just do a meme? You know, one with Trump as the devil killing little babies etc. Makes the same point.
This is an excellent piece! FYI I've noticed a typo in Justin's name. It's Sandefur (the typo is repeated a couple of times)
Thank you, and fixed!
I agree with the general points in your article here, but object to the use of your term Satanic to describe PEPFAR opposition since there is a revisionist interpretation of the Bible that argues that Satan (Lucifer) was a righteous rebel against God's tyranny in Heaven.
Liked and shared your article, you beautiful asshole!
Nah, no thanks.
There’s a very simple way to avoid getting AIDS. Not having sex. Or double up on the rubber.
It’s not American taxpayers problem that these people are apparently unable to control themselves. It’s not in their interest either to spend money on it, and thank god that this giveaway ends now.
Is there a better way to spend that money than PEPFAR? I'll take a crack at it. The cost per life saved is ~$4,230. If that same money was put into educating people, I think the cumulative effects would be much better.
If Africa remains at its current level of education development, forever, then it will never develop a self-sustaining medical industry which can PEPFAR itself. If we want Africa to PEPFAR itself, we should focus on education rather than "direct aid."
Direct aid is easy to quantify, measure, and verify. Someone didn't die! Pretty simple. Education is more... ambiguous. What does it mean to be educated? What's the standard? What's the result? Because education is a less discrete good, and is more subjective, and takes a longer time to take effect, it seems less impactful.
My counter argument would be something like this: imagine there is a dysfunction or disease which keeps spreading in a population. You have two options: manage the illness, and nurse people back to health when they get sick, or to cure the disease at the root, and allow people to treat themselves.
In America, we are probably spending too much on K-12 education. There is a point at which educational spending has diminishing returns. However, in Africa, we are no where near this threshold.
Contra Bryan Johnson, I don't think that the highest moral good is "don't die." Death is inevitable, and can't be avoided. When people talk about preventing death, they are really talking about delaying death. The usefulness of delaying death is so that people can live. If people are dying willy nilly all the time, maybe they won't be able to enjoy life as fully.
Here's another extreme example:
Option 1: spend $110 billion on PEPFAR every year for 100 years. Nothing changes. Africa does not develop past its current levels.
Option 2: spend $110 on education every year for 100 years. Exponential economic development. Africa becomes rich and starts to provide foreign aid for America.
The choice seems clear from this long-termist perspective. Now you could say, "how can people be educated if they're dying left and right?" Well, I don't view economic development through education as being the most impactful at the K-12 level, but at the university level. So I think that if you take one million 5th graders, and pay them to enter 6th grade, this isn't as impactful as taking 100,000 12th graders and paying them to enter 13th grade. This is because economies are developed from the top down by skilled labor and managerialism, not from the bottom up by slightly-less-illiterate manual laborers.
Helping random people avoid death I think is less morally good than specifically funding the educational development of the best and brightest, because in the long term, having a functioning economy and government will result in much less human suffering and death than continuously treating the symptoms of poor economics and governance.
While preventing death with PEPFAR isn't a bad thing in absolute terms, I still am not convinced that it is the best form of foreign aid. I think calculating moral good in terms of lives saved is a bit too superficial, from a long-termist view. That said, I would rather maintain PEPFAR as it was rather than totally eliminate foreign aid entirely.
I don’t agree with the proposed replacement to PEPFAR (education seems like cost-effective and tractable), but I certainly agree PEPFAR isn’t *the most* effective way the government could do foreign aid (they could give all the money to GiveWell.
(Btw, I banned that other dude — he was bringing a peculiar vibe to the function.)
Part of the reason education appeals to me is because, in the very long term, it's the only thing that actually reduces human mortality. Like if aliens came down and gave us all magical injections that allowed us to live for 1,000 years, and then they flew away in their saucers, we would feel great for 1,000 years, and then everyone would start dying again. I would rather the aliens give us lessons in science than to give us the fruits of science. And thus, I want to do unto Africa as I would have done to me.
Would you say the same of Indians?
... weird that you conflate the word "Indian" with "native American." Why are you, as a white supremacist, following me so closely? You're like my top commenter.
You forgot one: No PEPFAR means less African blacks, which means that it would be even harder to build Wakanda in the future.
My comment here was half-sarcastic, BTW. If that wasn't obvious already.
The program was paused, there’s no intent on aborting it, pun intended. The link to NPR confirms this, while you state the funding was halted. In the very first paragraph, you got the whole fucking thing wrong. Is that the “Fuck You, I’ve Got Mine (interpretation of ‘paused’)”?
1. “Halted” is another word for “paused”. I.e., “halt, who goes there?” ≠ “stop permanently, who goes there?”
2. I don’t know if you read past the first paragraph, but I did say all of this in the first section.
3. “there’s no intent on aborting it” — I hope this is true, but unless you’re privy to insider information, you don’t know that. Whether PEPFAR’s budget will be cut (or — less likely — the program will be ‘aborted’) is still uncertain, more so that if used to be. Exhibit A: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-state-department-usaid-humanitarian-aid-freeze-ukraine-gaza-sudan
Did you know that at the moment of publication of this erroneous article, Trump’s State Department issued a waiver that resumes the distribution of HIV medications? It’s always helpful to have “inside” information, i.e., publicly available the day before publication. Your approach to the subject should have been more even-handed with this newfound information. While a new administration settles in, one which ran on cutting the budgets, one would assume programs might be paused and reassessed—all programs for all foreign aid. PEPFAR is in its 24th year, including 4 years of the prior Trump administration. There was no evidence anywhere Trump’s new administration would halt the program. That’s partisan fear-mongering. Which can be fun at times, I get it. But if that’s your game, why waste your time on an article when you can just do a meme? You know, one with Trump as the devil killing little babies etc. Makes the same point.
https://www.state.gov/emergency-humanitarian-waiver-to-foreign-assistance-pause/