There’s a difference between what the best course of action for you personally is, and the best recommendation to push towards society at large. The best recommendation to push for has different priorities: short message lengths are easier to communicate, putting different burdens on different people feels unfair and turns people off, and more onerous demands are less likely to be met.
“Give at least 10% of what you make” is low enough to get people on board, conveniently occupies a very nice Schelling point, short enough to communicate effectively, and high enough to get a lot out of the targets it hits. Furthermore, if you want to give more, you’re still following the rule, so you can ask people to do the same without hypocrisy.
In short, it’s a good social policy to push for and reward those who follow it. Personally, you should follow some kind of weighted utilitarianism, since if you get the utility function good enough then small errors in how you distribute your spending don’t make much difference.
As an aside, an altruism-maximizer with a higher income may spend more money on themselves than one with a lower income—usually in the form of buying goods and services that make their income-generating ability better. Say, eating nourishing meals rather than the cheapest available one, so that their work performance goes up.
There’s a difference between what the best course of action for you personally is, and the best recommendation to push towards society at large. The best recommendation to push for has different priorities: short message lengths are easier to communicate, putting different burdens on different people feels unfair and turns people off, and more onerous demands are less likely to be met.
“Give at least 10% of what you make” is low enough to get people on board, conveniently occupies a very nice Schelling point, short enough to communicate effectively, and high enough to get a lot out of the targets it hits. Furthermore, if you want to give more, you’re still following the rule, so you can ask people to do the same without hypocrisy.
In short, it’s a good social policy to push for and reward those who follow it. Personally, you should follow some kind of weighted utilitarianism, since if you get the utility function good enough then small errors in how you distribute your spending don’t make much difference.
As an aside, an altruism-maximizer with a higher income may spend more money on themselves than one with a lower income—usually in the form of buying goods and services that make their income-generating ability better. Say, eating nourishing meals rather than the cheapest available one, so that their work performance goes up.