When I said we should stop glorifying high earners I was referring to the way that they’re hero-worshipped
Hm, maybe I just haven’t seen much of this?
Regarding the pledge, I’m inclined to agree with this quote:
I recently read a critique of the Giving What We Can pledge as classist. The GWWC pledge requires everyone with an income to donate 10% of their income. This disproportionately affects poor people: if you made $20,000 last year, giving 10% means potentially going hungry; if you made a million dollars last year, giving 10% means that instead of a yacht you will have to have a slightly smaller yacht. This is a true critique.
Of course, there’s another pledge that doesn’t have this problem. It was invented by the world’s most famous effective altruist. It even comes with a calculator. And I bet you half the people reading this haven’t heard of it.
The problem is that the Giving What We Can pledge is easy to remember. “Pledge to give 10% of your income” is a slogan. You can write it on a placard. “Pledge to give 1% of your before-tax income, unless charitable donations aren’t tax-deductible in your country in which case give 1% of your after-tax income, as long as you make less than $100,000/year adjusted for purchasing power parity, and after that gradually increase the amount you donate in accordance with these guidelines” is, um, not.
So, I’m inclined to think that preserving the simplicity of the current GWWC pledge is valuable. If someone doesn’t feel like they’re in a financial position to make that pledge, there’s always the Life You Can Save pledge, or they can skip pledging altogether. Also, note that religions have been asking their members for 10% of their income for thousands of years, many hundreds of which folks were much poorer than people typically are today.
I don’t think the existence of another pledge does much to negate the harm done by the GWWC pledge being classist.
I agree there’s value in simplicity. But we already have an exception to the rule: students only pay 1%. There’s two points here.
Firstly, it doesn’t seem to harm our placard-credentials. We still advertise as “give 10%”, but on further investigation there’s a sensible exception. I think something similar could accommodate low-earners.
Secondly, even if you want to keep it at one exception, students are in a much better position to give than many adults. So we should change the exception to a financial one.
Do you agree that, all things equal, the suggestions I make about how to relate to each other and other EAs are good?
Good to hear we’re mostly on the same page.
Hm, maybe I just haven’t seen much of this?
Regarding the pledge, I’m inclined to agree with this quote:
So, I’m inclined to think that preserving the simplicity of the current GWWC pledge is valuable. If someone doesn’t feel like they’re in a financial position to make that pledge, there’s always the Life You Can Save pledge, or they can skip pledging altogether. Also, note that religions have been asking their members for 10% of their income for thousands of years, many hundreds of which folks were much poorer than people typically are today.
I don’t think the existence of another pledge does much to negate the harm done by the GWWC pledge being classist.
I agree there’s value in simplicity. But we already have an exception to the rule: students only pay 1%. There’s two points here. Firstly, it doesn’t seem to harm our placard-credentials. We still advertise as “give 10%”, but on further investigation there’s a sensible exception. I think something similar could accommodate low-earners. Secondly, even if you want to keep it at one exception, students are in a much better position to give than many adults. So we should change the exception to a financial one.
Do you agree that, all things equal, the suggestions I make about how to relate to each other and other EAs are good?