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RE: What would you buy if your income suddenly doubled?
For both situations I'd find myself traveling to save the money. Aside from some investing much of it I'd try to stretch the money my uncle gave me as far as I could.
I like that the recipients get the money to put towards things they need. I didn't read too into it and this may sound terrible but I hope they'd be vetted well before becoming a recipient. Its hard not to think about how we often tend to squander money away on frivolous things and let more important things suffer.
I'm going to continue to investigate this GiveDirectly organization. Thanks for the great post.
Yes, to be honest as I was writing this I became less and less confident with the example I gave here. It might work better with the price of a house, but either way there are far too many confounders in this for my liking.
I have a feeling GiveDirectly gets this kind of concern a lot, to the extent that the first point they make on their faq’s is “No, they don’t just blow it on booze.” I used to have this view, maybe not booze but not spending it as well as they could, but I’m now of the opinion that it’s not really our place to say what is and is not a good use of money. If you’re poor you likely know what you need better than me and I’m more than happy to trust you on that. And from what I can tell this shows through in the data.
Thanks for the comment! If you get a chance, check out more to do with effective altruism definitely a good overlap with Skepticism.
I get what you're saying about people knowing what they need. I guess I'm looking at it as, I'm giving you money in hopes that that money helps meet an important need you have. I look at it as an investment in that persons well being. If my investment goes sour, i.e. that money is used for some extraneous things, I feel my investment would be better spent elsewhere meeting real needs.
Effective Altruism: Read your post and will look into it more. The SITP thing blows me away. I have to search here in North Carolina for a group that does that. I could sit there all day listening...and tossing my measly 2 cents in. Thanks for the info.
Evidence can really help build confidence in that respect. That's why I personally would not donate (or more likely GiveWell would not recommend) if it wasn't for the feedback step at the end. Charities that record data on the effectiveness on of their intervention always get a lot of love from me.
Yes we are extremely lucky to have a network such as SITP here in the UK. Science, skepticism, a couple of pints and some excellent chat. What could be better! The Skeptics with a K podcast is our equivalent of The skeptics guide to the universe if you're ever looking for more content to fill your ears.