Effective Altruism and the Human Mind explains why people often don’t choose the most effective strategies to help others and shows what can be done to change that. Many people are looking to make ...the world a better place, for instance, through donations or volunteering. But even though some strategies for doing good (e.g., some charities) are much more effective than the alternatives, most people’s efforts aren’t directed toward those effective strategies. Part I seeks to explain why that is, building on decades of psychological research. It’s shown that most people think that do-gooding should be guided by subjective preferences rather than by objective metrics of effectiveness. Since they often prefer less effective strategies (e.g., many prefer causes they have a personal connection with even if they’re less effective), this attitude reduces the effectiveness of their help. Moreover, most people lack knowledge about how to do good effectively, reducing their effectiveness further. Part II, in turn, discusses how we can address these issues and increase the effectiveness of people’s help. It covers both targeted informational, nudging, and incentivization techniques, on the one hand, and fundamental value change, on the other. The book ends with a discussion of how to implement effective altruism in practice, in a way that’s informed by psychological research.
In this article, I analyze the 2018 video game Detroit: Become Human as a potentially political text from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. I argue that it features and presents ...narrative choices in a way that encourages players to make decisions not solely for personal or empathetic reasons but also through a political contemplation, and I contend that the manner in which the game narratively presents individual agency and populist imaginations of “the people” complicates this political project. To do so, I first present an approach to narrative, agency, and politics in video games more generally, before then discussing questions of agency and politics in Detroit: Become Human on three levels: in its narrative presentation, in how the gameplay politicizes player choice, and in how both the narrative and the ludic elements in the game complicate its interest in politics. This contribution thus suggests ways of both studying the connections of agency and politics in video games and culturally contextualizing this particular way of representing (a)political choices.
The ongoing debate on over-tourism shows that developing more sustainable forms of tourism is not only relevant for environmental reasons but it would also create important spillovers benefitting ...residents within the economic and social domain of sustainability. Based on this broad idea, we develop a theoretical model of sustainable tourism considering the well-being of locals incorporating external effects and trade-offs with less sustainable forms of tourism. We employ a dynamic model of resident well-being, where utility is derived from consumption, tourism quality (e.g. better restaurants, hiking trails), and the number of tourists visiting. A benevolent regional government maximizes the representative resident’s well-being by choosing the rate of consumption, the number of tourists visiting (e.g. number of beds), and the rate of investment in tourism quality. Our results depend crucially on the initial number of tourists and state of tourism quality. Suppose the initial state of tourism quality is below its long-run optimum. If initial visitor numbers are small so that increasing them raises residents’ well-being directly through consumption (i.e. more tourism supply and cultural exchange raises resident’s marginal utility of consumption), the optimal strategy is to invest in tourism quality and to increase the number of tourists over time, as quality changes. If initial visitor numbers are large, increasing them further reduces the resident’s marginal utility from consumption (e.g. booked-out restaurants, crowed hiking trails, etc.) and the optimal strategy is to increase tourism quality over time but to reduce the quantity of visitors. Our general finding is that quantity and quality may move in tandem or in opposite direction, depending on current state and residents’ preferences. If over-tourism means that residents’ well-being is negatively affected by an increasing number of visitors, the model suggests that ongoing investment in tourism quality while reducing numbers will maximize residents’ well-being. We show that the first-best optimum, achieved in a centrally planned economy, can be replicated in a decentralized economy by using time-varying tax rates. This ensures that (i) the steady state of the first-best optimum is reached and that (ii) the speed of convergence to steady state is socially optimal.
We consider the role of search unemployment and wage bargaining in determining the relationship between growth and unemployment. While the long-run tradeoffs between unemployment and growth are weak, ...the short-run tradeoffs are much stronger. Their comovement varies along the transitional path and depends upon the underlying structural change. The consequences of the growth-unemployment nexus for fiscal policy are addressed. The analysis provides insights into the debate regarding the appropriate fiscal policy in light of the increased debt following the initial response to the recent financial crisis. Our analysis strongly supports an increase in government investment as the appropriate fiscal policy.
Swallowed topical-acting corticosteroids are recommended as first-line therapy for eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). Asthma medications not optimized for esophageal delivery are sometimes effective, ...although given off-label. We performed a randomized, placebo-controlled trial to assess the effectiveness and tolerability of a budesonide orodispersible tablet (BOT), which allows the drug to be delivered to the esophagus in adults with active EoE.
We performed a double-blind, parallel study of 88 adults with active EoE in Europe. Patients were randomly assigned to groups that received BOT (1 mg twice daily; n = 59) or placebo (n = 29) for 6 weeks. The primary end point was complete remission, based on clinical and histologic factors, including dysphagia and odynophagia severity ≤2 on a scale of 0–10 on each of the 7 days before the end of the double-blind phase and a peak eosinophil count <5 eosinophils/high power field. Patients who did not achieve complete remission at the end of the 6-week double-blind phase were offered 6 weeks of open-label treatment with BOT (1 mg twice daily).
At 6 weeks, 58% of patients given BOT were in complete remission compared with no patients given placebo (P < .0001). The secondary end point of histologic remission was achieved by 93% of patients given BOT vs no patients given placebo (P < .0001). After 12 weeks, 85% of patients had achieved remission. Six-week and 12-week BOT administration were safe and well tolerated; 5% of patients who received BOT developed symptomatic, mild candida, which was easily treated with an oral antifungal agent.
In a randomized trial of adults with active EoE, we found that budesonide oral tablets were significantly more effective than placebo in inducing clinical and histologic remission. Eudra-CT number 2014-001485-99; ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT02434029.
Display omitted
In this article, I analyze the 2013 video game BioShock Infinite as a popular site for the visual display of (in)justice and (im)morality. I contend that it is not so much the game’s ludic elements ...but its visuality that most forcefully makes a compelling argument against the oppression and discrimination found in the game’s fictional world, the city of Columbia. The game’s visual elements—as part of its larger plot, its narrative background, and the way history is depicted—particularly work to highlight racial and social injustice at the core of Columbia’s society. In turn, the game suggests to draw parallels between these fictional representations and actual US society at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The many obstacles to effective giving Caviola, Lucius; Schubert, Stefan; Nemirow, Jason
Judgment and decision making,
03/2020, Letnik:
15, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
When people donate, they rarely give to the charities that do the most good per dollar. Why is this? One possibility is that they do not know how to give effectively. Another possibility is ...that they are not motivated to do so. Across six tasks (Studies 1a, 1b), we found support for both explanations. Among lay donors, we observed multiple misconceptions—regarding disaster relief, overhead costs, donation splitting, and the relative effectiveness of local and foreign charities—that reduced the effectiveness of their giving. Similarly, we found that they were unfamiliar with the most effective charities (Studies 2a, 2b). Debunking these misconceptions and informing people about effectiveness boosted effective donations; however, a portion of lay donors continued to give ineffectively to satisfy their personal preferences. By contrast, a sample of self-identified effective altruists gave effectively across all tasks. They exhibited none of the misconceptions that we observed among lay donors and overwhelmingly favored the most effective option in their choice set (Study 3). Taken together, our studies imply that donors need to be both informed and motivated to give effectively on a consistent basis.
The 21st century will likely see growing risks of human extinction, but currently, relatively small resources are invested in reducing such existential risks. Using three samples (UK general public, ...US general public, and UK students; total N = 2,507), we study how laypeople reason about human extinction. We find that people think that human extinction needs to be prevented. Strikingly, however, they do not think that an extinction catastrophe would be uniquely bad relative to near-extinction catastrophes, which allow for recovery. More people find extinction uniquely bad when (a) asked to consider the extinction of an animal species rather than humans, (b) asked to consider a case where human extinction is associated with less direct harm, and (c) they are explicitly prompted to consider long-term consequences of the catastrophes. We conclude that an important reason why people do not find extinction uniquely bad is that they focus on the immediate death and suffering that the catastrophes cause for fellow humans, rather than on the long-term consequences. Finally, we find that (d) laypeople-in line with prominent philosophical arguments-think that the quality of the future is relevant: they do find extinction uniquely bad when this means forgoing a utopian future.
This book calls for an investigation of the ›borderlands of narrativity‹ — the complex and culturally productive area where the symbolic form of narrative meets other symbolic logics, such as ...data(base), play, spectacle, or ritual. It opens up a conversation about the ›beyond‹ of narrative, about the myriad constellations in which narrativity interlaces with, rubs against, or morphs into the principles of other forms. To conceptualize these borderlands, the book introduces the notion of »narrative liminality,« which the 16 articles utilize to engage literature, popular culture, digital technology, historical artifacts, and other kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years.
PDF
