Great list! Hope you don’t mind a couple of questions.
I hereby vow to donate 1% of my income below the taxation threshold and 10% of any income beyond that to a mix of GiveWell, CFAR, MIRI and Wikipedia of my choosing.
Any particular reason to donate to Wikipedia? I ask because I just read this interesting article about Wikimedia donations that was posted on the FB EA thread a few days ago.
Great list! Hope you don’t mind a couple of questions.
Thanks! There would be little point in posting to a discussion board if I wasn’t expecting discussion.
Any particular reason to donate to Wikipedia? I ask because I just read this interesting article about Wikimedia donations that was posted on the FB EA thread a few days ago.
Until a few minutes ago I thought that people would on average not donate enough to Wikipedia enough. Actually, my thought was more like “Wikipedia was so useful in the past and I expect it to be useful in the future too, so I could donate a small amount to make up for my use.” But I am revising that thought as we speak. The larger point anyhow was to signal that I am not completely sold on effective altruism and might also donate to the Red Cross or so.
Also, how many applications per month?
I have until the end of this year to decide. A modest goal would be one per week, but it would be way more effective if I make the rate dependent on time and domain. So let’s say—and let me say that this won’t be the final number—one per week for stuff in industry that is not seasonal and an adjusted number for seasonal stuff.
I am not going to start a lengthy discussion on this subject as this is not the place for it, so please do not read the lack of any further answers as anything else than the statemet above. That being said …
I am not completely sold on the premise that all human lives are equal which puts the whole idea of a cheaper saved life in question. I am not donating out of a moral imperative but personal preference so my donations exhibit decreasing marginal utility making diversification a necessity. And finally I have generally massive skepticism towards anything and anyone that claims to solve a huge, long standing problem like poverty just like the EA movement tends to do.
This is the rough sketch of my reservations. I will not discuss it further here but I am willing to discuss it in a more appropriate place, like a seperate thread or the open thread.
Thanks! No need for a lengthy debate, I’m just very curious about how people decide where to donate, especially when the process leads to explicitly non-EA decisions. Your reasons are in fact pretty close to what I would have guessed, so I suppose similar intuitions are quite common and might explain part of why an idea as obvious as effective altruism took so long to develop.
But yeah, a subthread about this in the OT sounds like a good idea (unless I can find lots of old discussions on the subject).
Great list! Hope you don’t mind a couple of questions.
Any particular reason to donate to Wikipedia? I ask because I just read this interesting article about Wikimedia donations that was posted on the FB EA thread a few days ago.
Also, how many applications per month?
Thanks! There would be little point in posting to a discussion board if I wasn’t expecting discussion.
Until a few minutes ago I thought that people would on average not donate enough to Wikipedia enough. Actually, my thought was more like “Wikipedia was so useful in the past and I expect it to be useful in the future too, so I could donate a small amount to make up for my use.” But I am revising that thought as we speak. The larger point anyhow was to signal that I am not completely sold on effective altruism and might also donate to the Red Cross or so.
I have until the end of this year to decide. A modest goal would be one per week, but it would be way more effective if I make the rate dependent on time and domain. So let’s say—and let me say that this won’t be the final number—one per week for stuff in industry that is not seasonal and an adjusted number for seasonal stuff.
Interesting, why is this? Do you mean effective altruism as a concept, or the EA movement as it currently is?
I am not going to start a lengthy discussion on this subject as this is not the place for it, so please do not read the lack of any further answers as anything else than the statemet above. That being said …
I am not completely sold on the premise that all human lives are equal which puts the whole idea of a cheaper saved life in question. I am not donating out of a moral imperative but personal preference so my donations exhibit decreasing marginal utility making diversification a necessity. And finally I have generally massive skepticism towards anything and anyone that claims to solve a huge, long standing problem like poverty just like the EA movement tends to do.
This is the rough sketch of my reservations. I will not discuss it further here but I am willing to discuss it in a more appropriate place, like a seperate thread or the open thread.
Thanks! No need for a lengthy debate, I’m just very curious about how people decide where to donate, especially when the process leads to explicitly non-EA decisions. Your reasons are in fact pretty close to what I would have guessed, so I suppose similar intuitions are quite common and might explain part of why an idea as obvious as effective altruism took so long to develop.
But yeah, a subthread about this in the OT sounds like a good idea (unless I can find lots of old discussions on the subject).