I’m not sure either, but here’s my current model: Even though it looks pretty likely that AISC is an improvement on no-AISC, there are very few potential funders: 1) EA-adjacent caritative organizations. 2) People from AIS/rat communities.
Now, how to explain their decisions? For the former, my guess would be a mix of not having heard of/received an application from AISC and preferring to optimize heavily towards top-rated charities. AISC’s work is hard to quantify, as you can tell from the most upvoted comments, and that’s a problem when you’re looking for projects to invest because you need to avoid being criticized for that kind of choice if it turns out AISC is crackpotist/a waste of funds. The Copenhagen interpretation of ethics applies hard there for an opponent with a tooth against the organization. For the latter, it depends a lot on individual people, but here are the possibilities that come to mind: - Not wanting donate anything but feeling like having to, which leads to large donations to few projects when you feel like donating enough to break the status quo bias. - Being especially mindful of one’s finances and donating only to preferred charities, because of a personal attachment (again, not likely to pick AISC a priori) or because they’re provably effective.
To answer 2), you can say why you don’t donate to AISC? Your motivations are probably very similar to other potential donators here.
I’m not sure either, but here’s my current model:
Even though it looks pretty likely that AISC is an improvement on no-AISC, there are very few potential funders:
1) EA-adjacent caritative organizations.
2) People from AIS/rat communities.
Now, how to explain their decisions?
For the former, my guess would be a mix of not having heard of/received an application from AISC and preferring to optimize heavily towards top-rated charities. AISC’s work is hard to quantify, as you can tell from the most upvoted comments, and that’s a problem when you’re looking for projects to invest because you need to avoid being criticized for that kind of choice if it turns out AISC is crackpotist/a waste of funds. The Copenhagen interpretation of ethics applies hard there for an opponent with a tooth against the organization.
For the latter, it depends a lot on individual people, but here are the possibilities that come to mind:
- Not wanting donate anything but feeling like having to, which leads to large donations to few projects when you feel like donating enough to break the status quo bias.
- Being especially mindful of one’s finances and donating only to preferred charities, because of a personal attachment (again, not likely to pick AISC a priori) or because they’re provably effective.
To answer 2), you can say why you don’t donate to AISC? Your motivations are probably very similar to other potential donators here.