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A comment on Effective altruism is not effective. Parent comment

Re:Effective altruism is not effective by lacker on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @07:42PM (#26814504)
It seems like if an NGO provided a UBI in a region that was controlled by a dictatorship, the dictatorship could simply take all the money. When taxes are not set democratically, giving money to individuals seems roughly equivalent to giving money straight to a dictator.
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Re:Effective altruism is not effective by oconnor663 on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @11:47PM (#26816004)
GiveDirectly has a lot of experience with cash transfers through M-Pesa and similar systems. I don't know exactly how much corruption they have to confront, but they might be better at cutting through it than you'd think.
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Re:Effective altruism is not effective by lacker on Thursday April 15, 2021 @01:26AM (#26816446)
The problem isn't even "corruption" per se. A dictator can do this entirely legally by simply raising taxes in an area (or cutting investment in public services) whenever NGO-provided cash or services lets the people there afford it. The problem is inherent to governments that are unresponsive to their people.
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