I need an effective precommitment mechanism, but I don't have an emotional attachment to things like donating to the Trump campaign. However, I do care about QALYs. Which public things can I donate to that cause the most harm per dollar?

(Feel free to DM if you think sharing publicly could be actively harmful.)

(Note: This is mostly written in jest, I won't actually donate to these.)

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trevor

30

This really isn't a good idea, the internet has a dark history of people asking questions like this on forums with lots of really smart people who treat it like a fun challenge, and then either the asker or one of the lurkers actually ends up doing it (for all sorts of reasons). Not usually donating and QALYs, but very similar nonetheless.

It's as fun of a conversation topic for in-person conversations as it is on internet forums though. The results aren't very practical since they're all too far in the wrong direction, but I might be wrong about that since the process is definitely mind-expanding. I recommend this post on effective evil if you haven't read it already.

Interesting I didn't know the history, maybe I'm insufficiently pessimistic about these things. Consider my query retracted