So obvious that it feels absurd to even engage with this, but some statistics re the extreme economic position of white South Africans, in one of the most unequal countries in the world: [Note to non-South Africans: I refer to typical SA racial classifications here: black African, coloured, Indian/Asian, white. "Coloured" does *not* have same meaning as the outdated & offensive American term. It is a complex & contested 🇿🇦 identity category; you can Google it!]

This is outrageous - an RCT cutting off water to tenants in Nairobi "slums" to see if it induces their landlords to pay the utility bill. And reading the paper just makes it worse.
(1/9)

nber.org/papers/w27569 One issue common for RCTs in poor countries-
no informed consent. To me this is always serious, but sometimes people justify w/ experiment "does no harm" & allows potentially nb benefits for targeted population. In this case? *Massive* harms & completely unclear benefits

(2/9)