Teaching a man to fish, and giving him fishnets, is worth to invest more in than giving him fish, right?
So are we going to be giving malaria nets for the next decade? What if some of that money were to petition the UN, or create a new ICC to judge the nations involved in colonialism, to get them to do reparations? If it costs $5 million to do this, but 40+ nations in Africa in return recieve $50+ billion, with oversight in how they invest it, wouldn't that be the most effective path forward to solve the root cause of the hundred + million people living in poverty in developing nations?
What if we invested $1 mil just to stop the 14 ex french colonies in Africa from still using their specially exploited currency, how much would they end up making to be able to invest in their countries a year? Any economists know how much their still paying to France to this date?
Still talking about France, what about Haiti? How many people are in poverty there that can easily be solved, how many lives saved?
You can look at Rwanda as an example of success. It's poised to be like a Singapore of Africa. The DRC is in exact opposite situation, and well there I have no idea what to say to solve it... going to take a lot more than EA investing, but what if getting the snowball rolling is all that's needed to become like Rwanda too.
Not going to go into a possible butterly effect of a war spilling out from there if Putin/xin want to go gung-ho there... let's keep it simple.
I strongly believe we can solve poverty in Africa in 20 years of this becomes a focus investment. Because we could also get more foundations involved, and another snowball effect of petitions from politicians to end neocolonialism, and ensure there's no corrupt deals, no exploitation, increase transparency in their governments so every citizen can know what's going on.
This is something I'm working on, and know without a doubt simple marketing, petitioning, and the right connections we could solve this not in 20 years, not in 10, but even in 5 years we can see results.
But a part of me thinks that the corruption runs so far deep in the UN, that yes a new court is needed, perhaps it could offer checks & balances to the UN, just like every democratic system has. Because there's just so much damn human rights violations in the member countries that they get away with.
But for some reason a part of me thinks it should also offer the voice of some leaders of the major technical backgrounds, faiths, & even the citizens. Say if it will judge a corporation for ecocide, 1,000 (10k, 1 mil, %, w/e) random locals who are affected should be able to vote on convicting them. Adding a sortition to democracy, not just electing representatives, w/ some tech I believe it's the next possible best future in government/politics.
In summary, 3 things I presented here, sorry for going from the original topic
- end neocolonialism is an exponential investment
- create a court to do this. in the middle of the world, close to Africa, close to Europe, and Asia..
- create tech to assist in doing this
- Results in exponentially more lives saved/improved with a minimal viable investment possible to do so and see results in our lifetime.
I look forward to a discourse, and some experts interesting in doing some good math, researching possibilities, constructive criticism, words of wisdom, inspiration, xoxo is nice too, some memes are ok if this forum allows it, and a le'chaim.
I expect everyone who's voting to give your thoughts; in this age of democracy, why hide? And don't tell me "cuz AI is worth more to invest in, why waste time on such trivial things when AI will rule our society like the God I think it is" because then AI already controls you.
"what about Haiti? How many people are in poverty there that can easily be solved, how many lives saved?"
I agree that there is probably a lot more that rich western countries should be doing to make life better for ordinary Haitians. Unfortunately, Step One in almost every conceivable plan is "help establish some kind of functional government in Haiti, to end the ongoing gang-fueled anarchy and violence." And that would involve sending western soldiers to take temporary control of the island, which (justly or not) would be derided by the press and public as... "neocolonialism"!
"You can look at Rwanda as an example of success. It's poised to be like a Singapore of Africa..."
I agree that it would be awesome if the EA movement could help create more beacons of freedom and opportunity across the developing world. Making more Rwandas, Singapores, Dubais, Shenzhens, etc, seems like it has the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty. Once approach to doing this is to create "Charter Cities" that have the ability to create many of their own laws and governing institutions (modeled after the best international examples of good governance): https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iwcCBLqfmhG2sshHN/charter-cities-why-they-re-exciting-and-how-they-might-work
Unfortunately, if the influence of western companies/institutions/countries is too strong, or if the "best international examples" being adopted in the Charter City seem too much like ordinary western laws / structures, then Charter City projects can run into trouble when they are criticized for being... "neocolonialism"!
So, maybe EA should invest in promoting neocolonialism??
Or maybe the real lesson is that the word "neocolonialism", is pretty vague, and people use it as a blanket criticism that unfairly groups together bad ways of trying to exploit developing countries, with good-faith new ideas and attempts to help solve real problems.
I don’t think the bottleneck on reparations is a court saying they should happen. The bottlenecks are 1) high income countries agreeing that this court should exist and 2) high income countries following what this court tells them to do. Both seem vanishingly unlikely to me.
That's fine of course, just additional thoughts. If you think you can achieve #1 without the others, by all means, is it then not a better option to do than spending over a decade investing in simple bandaids and hoping someone else solves this issue? Or that the big $ coming in from China/Japan/Russia/etc actually improves the QOL for everyone... and not just the logistics system that brings them more natural resources? I sincerely doubt we'll see another Rwanda in even 5 other countries in Africa in the next 5 years, but maybe 10.