I think the presentation of this argument here misses some important considerations:
The way that you want us to act with respect to OP is already the way that OP is trying to act with respect to the rest of the world.
The same considerations that lead OP to choose not to allocate all their funds to the highest expected value cause should also be relevant for individual donors, and could legitimately mean that they should diversify as well. There seems to be an inconsistency in saying these considerations are valid for OP but not for individuals.
Even if you are a pure marginal EV maximizer (you think these considerations are invalid for OP and for invidiauls), OPâs donations wonât always be relevant to your donation decisions, and if they are, it is the absolute amounts donated, rather than the percentages, that are relevant.
The way that you want us to act with respect to OP is already the way that OP is trying to act with respect to the rest of the world
EAs donât fund the most important causes, based purely on scale (otherwise tonnes of things EAs ignore would score highly, e.g. vaccination programs in rich countries). A core part of EA is looking for causes which are neglected. We look for the areas that are receiving the least funding relative to what they would receive in our ideal world, because these are likely to be the areas where our donations will have the highest marginal impact.
This is the reply to people who argue âoh you want local charities to disappear and to send all the money to malaria netsâ. The reply is: âNo! In my ideal world, malaria nets would quickly attract all the funding they need. Then there would still be plenty of money left over for other things. But I think I should look at the world I actually live in, recognize that malaria nets are outrageously underfunded, and give all my resources there.â
So in a sense, the argument you are making here isnât anything new. You are just saying we should try to act towards other EAs in a similar way to how EAs as a group act towards the rest of the world. And I donât disagree with this. But I think we should go all the way. I think we should treat other EAs in the same way that we treat the rest of the world. If I understand your argument correctly, you are trying to draw a distinction between the EA community and everyone else.
The same considerations that lead OP to choose not to allocate all their funds to the highest expected value cause should also be relevant for individual donors
OP do not allocate all of their funding to the âbestâ cause. Even if OP were a pure EV maximizer, they might have valid reasons not to do this, because they have such a big budget. It may be that diminishing marginal returns mean that the âbestâ cause stops being the best once OP have given a certain level of funds to it, at which point they should switch to funding another cause instead.
But my impression is that this is not OPâs reason for donating to multiple causes (or at least not their only reason). They are not purely trying to maximize expected value, or at least not in a naive first order way. One reason to diversify might be donor risk aversion, like you mention (e.g. you want to maximize EV while bounding the risk that you have no positive impact at all), and there are plenty of other considerations that might come into it too, e.g. sense of duty to a certain cause, reputation, belief in unquantifiable uncertainty and impossibility of making certain cause comparisons etc
But if these considerations are valid for OP then they should also be relevant for individual donors. For example, if an individual donor wants to bound the risk that they have no impact, then that might well mean not donating everything to the cause they think is most underfunded by OP. It would only make sense to do this if they had a weird type of risk aversion where they want to bound the risk that the EA community as a whole has no positive impact, but are unconcerned about their own donationsâ risk. This seems very arbitrary! Either they should care about the risk for their own donations, and should diversify, or they should be concerned with all of humanityâs donations, in which case OP should not be diversifying either!
Pure EV maximizers donât care about percentages anyway
You could bite the bullet and say that neither OP nor individual donors should be diversifying their donations (except when faced with diminishing marginal utility). For these individual donors, they should be donating everything to one cause (and probably one charity unless they have a lot to give!) But even for these donors, itâs not which causes OP underfund that really matters. Itâs what causes all of humanity underfund. So it is not the percentages of OPâs funding allocation that matter, itâs the absolute value.
If OP are a relatively small player in a cause area (global health..?) then their donation decisions are unlikely to be especially relevant to the individual donor. If they thought global health was the top cause before OP donations were taken into account, it probably still will be afterwards. But if OP are a relatively big player (animal welfare..?) then their donations are more relevant, due to diminishing marginal utility. But it is the absolute amount of funding they are moving, not the percentages, which will determine this.
I think the presentation of this argument here misses some important considerations:
The way that you want us to act with respect to OP is already the way that OP is trying to act with respect to the rest of the world.
The same considerations that lead OP to choose not to allocate all their funds to the highest expected value cause should also be relevant for individual donors, and could legitimately mean that they should diversify as well. There seems to be an inconsistency in saying these considerations are valid for OP but not for individuals.
Even if you are a pure marginal EV maximizer (you think these considerations are invalid for OP and for invidiauls), OPâs donations wonât always be relevant to your donation decisions, and if they are, it is the absolute amounts donated, rather than the percentages, that are relevant.
The way that you want us to act with respect to OP is already the way that OP is trying to act with respect to the rest of the world
EAs donât fund the most important causes, based purely on scale (otherwise tonnes of things EAs ignore would score highly, e.g. vaccination programs in rich countries). A core part of EA is looking for causes which are neglected. We look for the areas that are receiving the least funding relative to what they would receive in our ideal world, because these are likely to be the areas where our donations will have the highest marginal impact.
This is the reply to people who argue âoh you want local charities to disappear and to send all the money to malaria netsâ. The reply is: âNo! In my ideal world, malaria nets would quickly attract all the funding they need. Then there would still be plenty of money left over for other things. But I think I should look at the world I actually live in, recognize that malaria nets are outrageously underfunded, and give all my resources there.â
So in a sense, the argument you are making here isnât anything new. You are just saying we should try to act towards other EAs in a similar way to how EAs as a group act towards the rest of the world. And I donât disagree with this. But I think we should go all the way. I think we should treat other EAs in the same way that we treat the rest of the world. If I understand your argument correctly, you are trying to draw a distinction between the EA community and everyone else.
The same considerations that lead OP to choose not to allocate all their funds to the highest expected value cause should also be relevant for individual donors
OP do not allocate all of their funding to the âbestâ cause. Even if OP were a pure EV maximizer, they might have valid reasons not to do this, because they have such a big budget. It may be that diminishing marginal returns mean that the âbestâ cause stops being the best once OP have given a certain level of funds to it, at which point they should switch to funding another cause instead.
But my impression is that this is not OPâs reason for donating to multiple causes (or at least not their only reason). They are not purely trying to maximize expected value, or at least not in a naive first order way. One reason to diversify might be donor risk aversion, like you mention (e.g. you want to maximize EV while bounding the risk that you have no positive impact at all), and there are plenty of other considerations that might come into it too, e.g. sense of duty to a certain cause, reputation, belief in unquantifiable uncertainty and impossibility of making certain cause comparisons etc
But if these considerations are valid for OP then they should also be relevant for individual donors. For example, if an individual donor wants to bound the risk that they have no impact, then that might well mean not donating everything to the cause they think is most underfunded by OP. It would only make sense to do this if they had a weird type of risk aversion where they want to bound the risk that the EA community as a whole has no positive impact, but are unconcerned about their own donationsâ risk. This seems very arbitrary! Either they should care about the risk for their own donations, and should diversify, or they should be concerned with all of humanityâs donations, in which case OP should not be diversifying either!
Pure EV maximizers donât care about percentages anyway
You could bite the bullet and say that neither OP nor individual donors should be diversifying their donations (except when faced with diminishing marginal utility). For these individual donors, they should be donating everything to one cause (and probably one charity unless they have a lot to give!) But even for these donors, itâs not which causes OP underfund that really matters. Itâs what causes all of humanity underfund. So it is not the percentages of OPâs funding allocation that matter, itâs the absolute value.
If OP are a relatively small player in a cause area (global health..?) then their donation decisions are unlikely to be especially relevant to the individual donor. If they thought global health was the top cause before OP donations were taken into account, it probably still will be afterwards. But if OP are a relatively big player (animal welfare..?) then their donations are more relevant, due to diminishing marginal utility. But it is the absolute amount of funding they are moving, not the percentages, which will determine this.