I think we’re talking past each other a little bit. I’m all for EtG and didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. I think we should absolutely keep evaluating career impacts; Matt Wage made the right choice. When I said we should stop glorifying high earners I was referring to the way that they’re hero-worshipped, not our recommending EtG as a career path.
Most of my suggested changes are about the way we relate to other EAs and to outsiders, though I had a couple of more concrete suggestions about the pledge and the careers advice. I do take your point that glorifying high earners might be consequentially beneficial though: there is a bit of a trade-off here.
As long as we evaluate careers based on impact, we’re going to have the problem that highly capable people are able to produce a greater impact… Insofar as your post presents a solution, it seems like it trades off almost directly against encouraging people to pursue high-impact careers.
I hope my suggestions are compatible with encouraging people to pursue high-impact careers, but would reduce the image problem currently currently associated with it. One hope is that by distinguishing between doing good and being good we can encourage everyone to do good by high earning (or whatever) without alienating those who can’t by implying they are less virtuous, or less good people. We could also try and make the movement more inclusive to those who are less rich in other ways: e.g. campaigning for EA causes is more accessible to all.
I guess maybe making workers at highly effective nonprofits more the stars of the movement could help some?
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?
Thanks a lot, this cleared up a lot of things.
I think we’re talking past each other a little bit. I’m all for EtG and didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. I think we should absolutely keep evaluating career impacts; Matt Wage made the right choice. When I said we should stop glorifying high earners I was referring to the way that they’re hero-worshipped, not our recommending EtG as a career path.
Most of my suggested changes are about the way we relate to other EAs and to outsiders, though I had a couple of more concrete suggestions about the pledge and the careers advice. I do take your point that glorifying high earners might be consequentially beneficial though: there is a bit of a trade-off here.
I hope my suggestions are compatible with encouraging people to pursue high-impact careers, but would reduce the image problem currently currently associated with it. One hope is that by distinguishing between doing good and being good we can encourage everyone to do good by high earning (or whatever) without alienating those who can’t by implying they are less virtuous, or less good people. We could also try and make the movement more inclusive to those who are less rich in other ways: e.g. campaigning for EA causes is more accessible to all.
This seem like a good idea.
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?