Astral Codex Ten

Third World

5 min read

Third World

Article

Third World is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 6 times across 6 issues between July 28, 2021 and March 21, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “COVID to wreak devastation in the Third World”; “women across the Third World will have equal rights”; “charity to help Third World orphans”. It most often appears alongside China, Elon Musk, ACX Grants.

Metadata

  • Category: Places
  • Mention count: 6
  • Issue count: 6
  • First seen: July 28, 2021
  • Last seen: March 21, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

When Does Worrying About Things Trade Off Against Worrying About Other Things?
July 28, 2021 · Original source
(2): Instead of worrying about Republican obstructionism in Congress, we should worry about the potential for novel variants of COVID to wreak devastation in the Third World.
So You Want To Run A Microgrants Program
February 09, 2022 · Original source
And that's an easy one. What about B? If the professor figures out important things about what influences gender norms, maybe we can subtly put our finger on the scale. Maybe twenty years later, women across the Third World will have equal rights, economic development will be supercharged, and Saudi Arabia will be a Scandinavian-style democracy with a female Prime Minister. But maybe the professor won't find anything interesting. Or maybe they will find something interesting, but it will all be stuff like "it depends what kind of rice they cultivated in 4000 BC" and there won't be any subtle finger-putting-on-scale opportunities. Or maybe the professor will find something great, but nobody will listen to her and nothing will happen. Or maybe Third World countries will get angry at our meddling and hold coups and become even more regressive. Or maybe we'll overshoot, and Saudi Arabia will become really woke, and we'll have to listen to terrible takes about how the Houthi rebels are the new face of nice guy incel misogyny.
Information Markets, Decision Markets, Attention Markets, Action Markets
March 28, 2022 · Original source
The biggest risk is that the decision-maker won’t be harsh and honest enough to admit when things aren’t worth their attention. Suppose I started an attention market for myself, and it escalated an appeal from a charity to help Third World orphans. I throw these out all unread the time when I get them in the mail, which seems like a strong signal that it’s not worth my time. But do I really want to publicly say the equivalent of “Stop wasting my time with this garbage” in a way that financially penalizes the people who bet I would want to see it?
Highlights From The Comments On Capitalism & Charity
January 11, 2024 · Original source
The value of capitalism is that it elevates entire civilizations to a higher state of living. There's a reason why stuff like water dispensers to save lives are going to developing countries with no market economy: *in capitalist nations, there is no need for such things in the first place.* The equivalent work was baked into our basic infrastructure long ago.
Seems to me that one of the best places to invest, then, would be in research to figure out why the "charities that send economists (or other professionals) to developing countries and advise them on how to do more capitalism" were ineffective and how to do it better.
For those of you who don’t know, GiveDirectly is a charity that gives your money directly to poor people in developing countries, and then they can spent it on whatever they want. They’re doing some cool stuff!
Inline links: GiveDirectly
Everyone's A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up
January 23, 2025 · Original source
(if you’re going to get hung up on whether the suffering is because of a human bad actor or a natural cause, then can I interest you in donating to Bedari, a charity that prevents domestic abuse in the Third World? Most of their operations are in Pakistan, so you don’t even have to leave your comfort zone of being against Pakistani abusers in particular!)
Inline links: Bedari
More Drowning Children
March 21, 2025 · Original source
But we would also agree to save people dying of easily-cured diseases in the Third World, because we wouldn’t know if we would be those people either. Everyone would agree to a proposed deal that rich people donate a small fraction of their income to charity, because it would be only a mild inconvenience if they turned out to be rich, but a life-saver if they turned out to be poor.