2025-10-08
title edited 2026-02-13
Fix geopolitics, not poverty
This is obvious to me now but worth saying for others. Target audience is others, not me.
- I think fixing geopolitics is higher leverage than donating money or time directly to the poor. Good political systems can uplift poor on their own. Bad political systems will generally undo all the donations you do make, over long enough time horizon (example: most western aid to Africa).
- Post-WW2 the world has been more or less carved into two nuclear blocs that contain all nine nuclear state. Less than 100 people decide which countries have poverty and which ones don't. If you do not rule a nuclear state yourself, you are a client for the rulers of one of the nuclear states.
- Do not assume fixing geoopolitics is beyond your capabilities.
- A lot of the damage caused by poverty IMO is not direct harm such as people starving or dying of diseases, but is interpersonal harm. For instance parents who beat their kids because this is normalised for them, or a zero-sum economy where the only high status job is to get into politics or law and rob someone else.
- (Update 2026-02-10) I was atleast somewhat biased by Indian context when I made this claim. I do think if you are studying harms in North Korea for example, actual mass starvation should be among your top hypotheses for what the biggest harm is. I don't have enough knowledge about Africa to make a claim about Africa in particular. But yes even there, interpersonal violence such as actual civil war and genocide seems like the most important thing to focus on.
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