I would prefer see “I recognise that I can use part of my income to do a significant amount of good in the developing world” remain in the pledge. On similar grounds, I do not really like the language “beyond poverty.”
Many commenters have focused on the effects of a change on GWWC’s branding and its ability to attract additional members. These may be important effects. But depending on how seriously you take the pledge and on how narrowly you read it, the direct effect may also be quite important. Namely, the a narrow reading of the current pledge entails a substantial commitment to a particular cause, which does not seem compatible with a cause agnostic outlook and a reasonable degree of epistemic humility—especially not for donors early in life (including much of GWWC’s current audience). Though GWWC need not and probably should not broaden its scope to be a general EA organization, I do think that being in direct tension with effectiveness would be bad.
Relatedly, many future-focused EA’s have signed the pledge on the basis of views such as:
The change is not likely to make a difference to people who think that the best way to help others is to ensure that the future will go well, since the pledge already explicitly includes people who will live in the future, as well as those alive now.
I think this is a plausible view in some cases, but in others it is a stretch. For example, I think it is plausible that our altruistic priorities may be quite different if we consider the very long-term, rather than restricting our attention to the coming centuries. One could debate whether such effects can be classified as “helping people in developing countries,” but (1) I suspect that for most precise definitions of developing countries, they couldn’t, (2) in any case, a casual listener would be very unlikly interpret the phrase this way. I would not want to be in the position of defending this interpretation in a discussion of my own giving, and I think that many people would view it as an intentional misrepresentation.
That said, I would probably not sign a modified version of the pledge either. Though I currently give substantially more than 10% of my income away, I am not confident that donation will remain the most effective way to do good (I understand that in principle investment in profitable enterprises or in my own human capital could be carried out in a way consistent with a sufficiently broad reading of the pledge, but I would be even more uncomfortable with this than with donating to non-development causes). I suspect that (a modest probability) * (10% of my income) is more important than the possible positive effects. Hopefully my view can be informative, but I don’t think it should be given much weight as such.
I’m sorry Paul, I don’t think I quite follow your reasoning, so my response may not be wholly on point. But to explain why the suggested wording takes out that part, the reason is that although we would expect everyone signing the pledge to agree with the statement “I recognise that I can use part of my income to do a significant amount of good in the developing world”, it might be seen as duplicitous to have that in a cause neutral pledge. (I’m not convinced that’s the case, but I’m open to it.) The ‘beyond poverty’ wording is just a possible suggestion, I’d love to hear alternatives you think would be better. I assume your reason for disliking it is that it gives a flavour ‘going further than’ when what we really wanted was something like ‘other possible candidates for the most effective thing’ or something. This is something we’d put a bunch of thought into if we decided to change the pledge.
I’d be very grateful to hear any other comments you have on this. (I’ve been referring back to the email you sent over the summer, which has been useful, so don’t feel you need to replicate the material in that, but if you have other thoughts I’d love to hear them.)
I would prefer see “I recognise that I can use part of my income to do a significant amount of good in the developing world” remain in the pledge. On similar grounds, I do not really like the language “beyond poverty.”
Many commenters have focused on the effects of a change on GWWC’s branding and its ability to attract additional members. These may be important effects. But depending on how seriously you take the pledge and on how narrowly you read it, the direct effect may also be quite important. Namely, the a narrow reading of the current pledge entails a substantial commitment to a particular cause, which does not seem compatible with a cause agnostic outlook and a reasonable degree of epistemic humility—especially not for donors early in life (including much of GWWC’s current audience). Though GWWC need not and probably should not broaden its scope to be a general EA organization, I do think that being in direct tension with effectiveness would be bad.
Relatedly, many future-focused EA’s have signed the pledge on the basis of views such as:
I think this is a plausible view in some cases, but in others it is a stretch. For example, I think it is plausible that our altruistic priorities may be quite different if we consider the very long-term, rather than restricting our attention to the coming centuries. One could debate whether such effects can be classified as “helping people in developing countries,” but (1) I suspect that for most precise definitions of developing countries, they couldn’t, (2) in any case, a casual listener would be very unlikly interpret the phrase this way. I would not want to be in the position of defending this interpretation in a discussion of my own giving, and I think that many people would view it as an intentional misrepresentation.
That said, I would probably not sign a modified version of the pledge either. Though I currently give substantially more than 10% of my income away, I am not confident that donation will remain the most effective way to do good (I understand that in principle investment in profitable enterprises or in my own human capital could be carried out in a way consistent with a sufficiently broad reading of the pledge, but I would be even more uncomfortable with this than with donating to non-development causes). I suspect that (a modest probability) * (10% of my income) is more important than the possible positive effects. Hopefully my view can be informative, but I don’t think it should be given much weight as such.
I’m sorry Paul, I don’t think I quite follow your reasoning, so my response may not be wholly on point. But to explain why the suggested wording takes out that part, the reason is that although we would expect everyone signing the pledge to agree with the statement “I recognise that I can use part of my income to do a significant amount of good in the developing world”, it might be seen as duplicitous to have that in a cause neutral pledge. (I’m not convinced that’s the case, but I’m open to it.) The ‘beyond poverty’ wording is just a possible suggestion, I’d love to hear alternatives you think would be better. I assume your reason for disliking it is that it gives a flavour ‘going further than’ when what we really wanted was something like ‘other possible candidates for the most effective thing’ or something. This is something we’d put a bunch of thought into if we decided to change the pledge. I’d be very grateful to hear any other comments you have on this. (I’ve been referring back to the email you sent over the summer, which has been useful, so don’t feel you need to replicate the material in that, but if you have other thoughts I’d love to hear them.)
Whoever ‘disliked’ this post, I’d be interested to hear why. If it’s because I’ve misunderstood Paul’s point, apologies!