For about a year now Iāve had a post kicking around in my head that thereās no EA interest in putting numerical bounds on the value of, for example, a strong tenant movement, the end of mass incarceration, a strong labor movement, the end of the drug war, the end of war in general.
If you do get to writing the post you probably want to include that mass incarceration was something Open Phil looked into in detail and spent $130M on before deciding in 2021 that money to GiveWell top charities went farther. Iād be very interested to read the post!
power-flattering answers that want you to make a lot of money and donate it to EA,
Making money to donate hasnāt been a top recommendation within EA for about five years: it still makes sense for some people, but not most.
When you say ādonating to EAā thatās ambiguous between ādonating it to building the EA movementā and ādonating it to charities that EAs think are doing a lot of goodā. If you mean the latter I agree with you (ex: see what donation opportunities GWWC marks as ātop ratedā).
while making 0 effort to convince your friends or society
When people go into this full time we tend to say they work in community building. But that implies more of an āour goal is to get people to become EAsā than is quite rightāthings like the 80k podcast are often more about spreading ideas than about growing the movement. And a lot of EAs do this individually as well: Iāve written hundreds of posts on EA that are mostly read by my friends, and had a lot of in-person conversations about the ideas.
Letās say you had a billion dollars to address āpandemic riskā in the world. Could you actually meaningfully reduce pandemic risk? ā¦ This is a class issue, like it or not, and dumping a billion dollars into it wonāt solve class.
Does emotion not guide deworming initiatives? Or are EAs just happy to make a number go up? I canāt tell
Personally my donations to deworming havenāt been guided by my emotional reaction to parasites. My emotions are just not a very good guide to what most needs doing! Iām emotionally similarly affected by harm to a thousand people as a million: my emotions just arenāt able to handle scale. Emotions matter for motivation, but theyāre not much help (and can hurt) in prioritization.
You also write both:
EA shouldāve been happy to take his money but assumed it was going to collapse.
And then later on:
I like the callout of ātheories of changeā and āFunding bodies should within 6 months publish lists of sources they will not accept money from, regardless of legalityā. Poisonous funders are, IMO: ā¦99.9% of crypto
If you do get to writing the post you probably want to include that mass incarceration was something Open Phil looked into in detail and spent $130M on before deciding in 2021 that money to GiveWell top charities went farther. Iād be very interested to read the post!
Making money to donate hasnāt been a top recommendation within EA for about five years: it still makes sense for some people, but not most.
When you say ādonating to EAā thatās ambiguous between ādonating it to building the EA movementā and ādonating it to charities that EAs think are doing a lot of goodā. If you mean the latter I agree with you (ex: see what donation opportunities GWWC marks as ātop ratedā).
When people go into this full time we tend to say they work in community building. But that implies more of an āour goal is to get people to become EAsā than is quite rightāthings like the 80k podcast are often more about spreading ideas than about growing the movement. And a lot of EAs do this individually as well: Iāve written hundreds of posts on EA that are mostly read by my friends, and had a lot of in-person conversations about the ideas.
Effectively addressing risk from future pandemics wouldnāt look like āspend a lot more money on the things we are already doingā. Instead it would be things like the projects listed in Concrete Biosecurity Projects (some of which could be big) or Delay, Detect, Defend: Preparing for a Future in which Thousands Can Release New Pandemics. (Disclosure: I work for a project thatās on both those lists).
Personally my donations to deworming havenāt been guided by my emotional reaction to parasites. My emotions are just not a very good guide to what most needs doing! Iām emotionally similarly affected by harm to a thousand people as a million: my emotions just arenāt able to handle scale. Emotions matter for motivation, but theyāre not much help (and can hurt) in prioritization.
You also write both:
And then later on:
These seem like theyāre in conflict?