All of Ayman's Comments + Replies

Thank you very much for this! I certainly got the impression that this topic is a bit sensitive here.

You are right, I could have given an argument or asked the question in a different way- although I did write under the title the question that I really wanted to ask, don’t know if that showed up to people. If it did, I am surprised why no one focused on that rather than the title. For me Capitalism is the cause or one of the biggest contributors or the maintainer to many of the issues we are facing, Global poverty and climate change to name a few. To not ... (read more)

2
Will Bradshaw
3y
I might give you climate change – though I would note that e.g. communist states also have very bad environmental records (see e.g. the Aral Sea), so there is still some work to be done to strengthen that case. I don't agree with global poverty – I currently think  capitalism has historically been, and will continue to be, one of the most important forces bringing people out of poverty. People say a lot of silly things regarding the connection between capitalism and poverty. There might be a more sensible case for a link between the two, but I haven't heard it yet.
2
Will Bradshaw
3y
I can certainly see a story where capitalism was the genesis and remains the driver of factory farming. But the more fundamental problem is that most people don't see animals as morally important, and that applies across nearly all economic systems. There's a complicating factor here, which is that capitalism makes countries rich, and rich people want to eat more meat, so it's possible that that is most of the driver here. One could respond to that that in that case making countries rich is bad on net, but I think any path to a good world is going to involve making everyone in the world a lot richer, so if factory farming is near-inevitable in rich countries (in the absence of good technological alternatives) then I'm reluctant to blame capitalism, as opposed to humans in general. I would be interested in seeing data on factory farming in less capitalist countries (e.g. the Soviet Union), compared to more free-market countries of similar wealth (if one can find any).

Thank you for this clarification. I certainly thought that there are dedicated volnuteers.

Please let me know how to delete my question so other volunteers don’t have to respond. And just to clarify my question was’t whether capitalism is the root of all evil, this was just the title. But anyway thank you for your time and directions. I will read around in the EA about this topic and make up my own mind. Thanks again.

Thanks again for your response. I didn’t know that only volunteers in EA respond to these questions. I did not ask the question to get a clear answer, I asked it to see what people think (as in a form of discussion). I thought anyone can see these question not only volunteers. So I apologies for wasting anyone’s time.

4
Will Bradshaw
3y
To clarify, when meerpirat say that people on the EA Forum are volunteers, they don't (I assume) mean that there is some dedicated team of volunteers whose job it is to answer Forum questions. Rather, they simply mean that most users of the Forum are not paid to use it. (I'm not sure if you were in fact confused about this, but I thought your comment above potentially implied that you were, so I wanted to make this clear just in case.)

Also this downvoting made me question whether I understand what is the purpose of the forum? Isn’t it for people to discuss issues related to EA? Or is it only to agree on what the EA say? I don’t see how my question gave the impression that I haven’t thought about the question? You the topic of capitalism a bit sensitive here?

4
MaxRa
3y
There's a popular guide on asking good questions to a technical community, which I found useful (though it's pretty biting): http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html  I think asking "Is capitalism the root of all evil?" without much context gives the strong impression of a less useful question, as it's very unspecific and in my experience value-laden and requires a tonne of unpacking (the article I linked discusses this a bit).

Thanks for your response. Of course Capitalism is not the root of all evil! I was just being dramatic in my title, I didn’t think people will take literary. It seems like this topic is a bit sensitive.

Thanks for your response. Yes, I did look at the systematic change area, albeit quite quickly. I also read Singer's response in the live you can save, I thought that his response wasn’t convincing. So I thought I wonder what people think in this forum. Thank you for the Capitalism article, I’ll have a read.

4
MaxRa
3y
I think a paragraph on why you didn't find Singer's response convincing would've improved this question considerably, as it would've allowed people to see where you are coming from and what kind of concrete answer would be useful for you.

Actually maybe they do charge me if I did non UK transaction. Thanks for making me aware!

Thanks Aaron.

I will pay from my visa debt card and they don’t charge me for transactions, so it should be fine.

1
Ayman
3y
Actually maybe they do charge me if I did non UK transaction. Thanks for making me aware!

Thanks Alexrjl!

I think I will pay monthly to start with.

2
Aaron Gertler
3y
One more thing to keep in mind for small monthly payments is that many payment services take a small fee on every transaction. This might make it better to donate annually (though it's going to be a very small difference in most cases, so I think Alex's point is also good). For example, if your credit card company takes a 15-cent fee from each payment you make, the charity you support will lose $1.80 if you donate monthly, and only 15 cents if you donate yearly.