It’s interesting that a number of people have said they would take the alternative pledge with the implication they won’t change their behaviour (ie they will take the enabled pledge if it reflects what they already do or plan to do). It seems to me then that including these members would therefore be of limited value in terms of money moved., though it would allow them to feel included in the gwwc community.
Weighing against this limited benefit is the risk of the amended pledge being less likely to attract new members for whom joining wild be a change of behaviour. As others have said, poverty is a cause well geared towards engaging people, and this has been vital for GWWC’s growth.
Additionally I’m worried that a watered down wording would risk a loss if focus and encourage people to take the pledge less seriously. In fact I am worried that good faith efforts to be inclusive in membership have already done so to some extent. Today on the Facebook group I read one member openly saying he doesn’t abide by the pledge and that he thinks that’s no problem, he doesn’t feel constrained by the ‘literal text’. Others are arguing we should amend the pledge should become cause agnostic because some members have joined with the sincere belief that x-risk or movement building charities are the best way to help those in extreme poverty.
Additionally I’m worried that a watered down wording would risk a loss if focus and encourage people to take the pledge less seriously. In fact I am worried that good faith efforts to be inclusive in membership have already done so to some extent. Today on the Facebook group I read one member openly saying he doesn’t abide by the pledge and that he thinks that’s no problem, he doesn’t feel constrained by the ‘literal text’.
I agree that this is a massive concern. GWWC should place a high priority on maintaining the integrity of pledge. Breaking a solemn life-long pledge should have serious consequences—it should not be compatible with remaining a member of the community in good standing, especially if not caused by adverse personal circumstances.
Perhaps this is difficult for utilitarians, who despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians.
I worry that switching the pledge signing from paper to online also undermines the weight of the decision. For most serious legal decisions, paper forms must be signed—the effort required to mail them back puts up a minor barrier to those lacking in resolve. And the physical act, distinct from electronic submission that we treat so casually, adds further weight to the pledge.
“Perhaps this is difficult for utilitarians, who despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians.”
I’m curious what you think the “stereotype of act utilitarians” is, unless it’s “hypocrite.” I literally know exactly zero people who “in practice often act” in a manner that is most conducive to the greater good in the short term (you can probably argue about burnout and self-care, complicated game theory and signaling, etc...but then you’re closer in practice to rule or Two-Level/Hare’s utilitarianism, certainly not the stereotype of act utilitarians!) Some trivially obvious examples:
-People generally think nothing of taking the bus to work instead of walking/biking, even when the time cost is about the same, or if their time outside work isn’t going to be used productively anyway.
-On the flip side, bikers often refuse rides, even if it’ll save them time and the added costs to their friends are either a)nonexistent or b)irrelevant from the perspective of the universe (since their friends either don’t donate effectively or have a separate donation budget that won’t be affected)
-Most people, even claimed “act utilitarians”, happen to have two kidneys.
-People’s dietary choices seem mostly to be about personal comfort, rather than careful calculations about cost vs. time savings.
-People don’t “marry-to-give” (This is probably a good thing!)
-EAs spend substantially less time on strategic cause selection than a naive calculation of the value of information would suggest
-etc, etc
Speaking as someone who has two kidneys, etc, I think it’s fine that people, even people who in principle agree with act utilitarianism, in practice act like Two-Level or rule utilitarians or virtue ethicists, etc., and in the long run probably optimal (burnout and signaling are very important considerations!) I’m just suggesting that you’re attacking a caricature that’s entirely nonexistent.
Hi, so actually there are a few of us act utilitarians out there. I also don’t see any reason to believe that there is a substantial difference between maximizing short term consequences and maximizing long term consequences. That’s an odd distinction, since contributing to certain causes e.g. x-risk is as long-term as anything. It entirely begs the question to think that act utilitarianism vs rule utilitarianism is some kind of tradeoff between short and long term consequences.
(burnout and signaling are very important considerations!)
Who got all the positive media coverage a few months ago? Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman! And they were acting like pretty standard act utilitarians. I’m also yet to find substantial examples of burnout in my own life nor from anyone else.
Now the user above you claimed that act utilitarians “despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians,” and although I can’t say he’s necessarily wrong, I can’t be sure because I’d have to know more about what he means by “stereotypical”. Hopefully he has some examples of this behavior, although usually when people make claims about stereotypical-counterproductive-act-utilitarians it turns out that they don’t have any sort of good evidence or examples of utilitarians actually acting like that.
Anyway, I’d be perfectly happy to put more enforcement/formality behind the GWWC pledge. It sounds like a great idea to me, so I have an even harder time understanding what sort of motivation might underlie Larks’ snark.
I agree that the intrinsic benefit of people joining who have said on here that it wouldn’t change their behaviour would likely be minimal. You might think there would be community benefits (both for them and others), or commitment benefits. But the main reason I’m asking this question is the fact that if we want this to become the standard action people who hear about effective altruism take, and want people to feel they are working toward a common aim even if they differ on what they think the very most effective cause is, then it’s important that most people currently affiiliated with effective altruism are members.
Poverty does seem to be a good cause for engaging people, which is one of the reasons we’d continue with the vision, mission and overall focus we currently have. I think I would be somewhat surprised if people who wholly agreed with our charity recommendations etc were put off from signing the pledge because it wasn’t narrow enough. That might be a difficult thing to measure though, so we’ll probably try to do some testing of it, talking to people who don’t know much about gwwc yet.
Yes, it would be really problematic if the pledge started being taken less seriously. We’re trying hard to have more contact with our members than previously, and are currently in the process of following up with people as to whether they’ve been keeping up with the pledge. Hopefully having increased personal contact with members will help to keep people committed, and will allow us to discuss with people whether they really seem to be fulfilling the pledge.
It’s interesting that a number of people have said they would take the alternative pledge with the implication they won’t change their behaviour (ie they will take the enabled pledge if it reflects what they already do or plan to do).
A pledge is a commitment device. A person who is currently donating X to Xrisk might increase their chances of continuing to donate to Xrisk by taking the pledge.
It’s interesting that a number of people have said they would take the alternative pledge with the implication they won’t change their behaviour (ie they will take the enabled pledge if it reflects what they already do or plan to do). It seems to me then that including these members would therefore be of limited value in terms of money moved., though it would allow them to feel included in the gwwc community.
Weighing against this limited benefit is the risk of the amended pledge being less likely to attract new members for whom joining wild be a change of behaviour. As others have said, poverty is a cause well geared towards engaging people, and this has been vital for GWWC’s growth.
Additionally I’m worried that a watered down wording would risk a loss if focus and encourage people to take the pledge less seriously. In fact I am worried that good faith efforts to be inclusive in membership have already done so to some extent. Today on the Facebook group I read one member openly saying he doesn’t abide by the pledge and that he thinks that’s no problem, he doesn’t feel constrained by the ‘literal text’. Others are arguing we should amend the pledge should become cause agnostic because some members have joined with the sincere belief that x-risk or movement building charities are the best way to help those in extreme poverty.
I agree that this is a massive concern. GWWC should place a high priority on maintaining the integrity of pledge. Breaking a solemn life-long pledge should have serious consequences—it should not be compatible with remaining a member of the community in good standing, especially if not caused by adverse personal circumstances.
Perhaps this is difficult for utilitarians, who despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians.
I worry that switching the pledge signing from paper to online also undermines the weight of the decision. For most serious legal decisions, paper forms must be signed—the effort required to mail them back puts up a minor barrier to those lacking in resolve. And the physical act, distinct from electronic submission that we treat so casually, adds further weight to the pledge.
“Perhaps this is difficult for utilitarians, who despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians.”
I’m curious what you think the “stereotype of act utilitarians” is, unless it’s “hypocrite.” I literally know exactly zero people who “in practice often act” in a manner that is most conducive to the greater good in the short term (you can probably argue about burnout and self-care, complicated game theory and signaling, etc...but then you’re closer in practice to rule or Two-Level/Hare’s utilitarianism, certainly not the stereotype of act utilitarians!) Some trivially obvious examples:
-People generally think nothing of taking the bus to work instead of walking/biking, even when the time cost is about the same, or if their time outside work isn’t going to be used productively anyway.
-On the flip side, bikers often refuse rides, even if it’ll save them time and the added costs to their friends are either a)nonexistent or b)irrelevant from the perspective of the universe (since their friends either don’t donate effectively or have a separate donation budget that won’t be affected)
-Most people, even claimed “act utilitarians”, happen to have two kidneys.
-People’s dietary choices seem mostly to be about personal comfort, rather than careful calculations about cost vs. time savings.
-People don’t “marry-to-give” (This is probably a good thing!)
-EAs spend substantially less time on strategic cause selection than a naive calculation of the value of information would suggest -etc, etc
Speaking as someone who has two kidneys, etc, I think it’s fine that people, even people who in principle agree with act utilitarianism, in practice act like Two-Level or rule utilitarians or virtue ethicists, etc., and in the long run probably optimal (burnout and signaling are very important considerations!) I’m just suggesting that you’re attacking a caricature that’s entirely nonexistent.
Hi, so actually there are a few of us act utilitarians out there. I also don’t see any reason to believe that there is a substantial difference between maximizing short term consequences and maximizing long term consequences. That’s an odd distinction, since contributing to certain causes e.g. x-risk is as long-term as anything. It entirely begs the question to think that act utilitarianism vs rule utilitarianism is some kind of tradeoff between short and long term consequences.
Who got all the positive media coverage a few months ago? Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman! And they were acting like pretty standard act utilitarians. I’m also yet to find substantial examples of burnout in my own life nor from anyone else.
Now the user above you claimed that act utilitarians “despite perhaps academically understanding the importance of game theory and rules, in practice often act like the stereotype of act utilitarians,” and although I can’t say he’s necessarily wrong, I can’t be sure because I’d have to know more about what he means by “stereotypical”. Hopefully he has some examples of this behavior, although usually when people make claims about stereotypical-counterproductive-act-utilitarians it turns out that they don’t have any sort of good evidence or examples of utilitarians actually acting like that.
Anyway, I’d be perfectly happy to put more enforcement/formality behind the GWWC pledge. It sounds like a great idea to me, so I have an even harder time understanding what sort of motivation might underlie Larks’ snark.
Technically, if the Pledge was changed, it could still be sent and returned via paper mail.
I agree that
Paper vs Electronic
is orthogonal to
Old pledge vs Proposed pledge
I mentioned it as another example of a way that the pledge seemed to have lost gravitas.
I agree that the intrinsic benefit of people joining who have said on here that it wouldn’t change their behaviour would likely be minimal. You might think there would be community benefits (both for them and others), or commitment benefits. But the main reason I’m asking this question is the fact that if we want this to become the standard action people who hear about effective altruism take, and want people to feel they are working toward a common aim even if they differ on what they think the very most effective cause is, then it’s important that most people currently affiiliated with effective altruism are members. Poverty does seem to be a good cause for engaging people, which is one of the reasons we’d continue with the vision, mission and overall focus we currently have. I think I would be somewhat surprised if people who wholly agreed with our charity recommendations etc were put off from signing the pledge because it wasn’t narrow enough. That might be a difficult thing to measure though, so we’ll probably try to do some testing of it, talking to people who don’t know much about gwwc yet. Yes, it would be really problematic if the pledge started being taken less seriously. We’re trying hard to have more contact with our members than previously, and are currently in the process of following up with people as to whether they’ve been keeping up with the pledge. Hopefully having increased personal contact with members will help to keep people committed, and will allow us to discuss with people whether they really seem to be fulfilling the pledge.
A pledge is a commitment device. A person who is currently donating X to Xrisk might increase their chances of continuing to donate to Xrisk by taking the pledge.
I don’t see how that’s not behavior change.