One thing that I didn’t make sufficiently clear: It is already the case that donating to an organisation which seeks to prevent future catastrophes (whether that be climate change, global pandemics or whatever) would fulfil the pledge, if you thought that was the most effective way to help those in the developing world. The pledge specifically includes ‘now and in future’ to make clear that not only currently existing people are important. We already have (and I believe have for many years had) members who donate to, for example, the Future of Humanity Institute. That hasn’t in the past caused problems, nor led to us evaluating those charities. This shift would be more relevant for those who think that the most effective causes are animal welfare based, than for those concerned about future risks to humans.
For me, this is an excellent revelation. I rescind the comment I made on Facebook that I wouldn’t take the Pledge if it wasn’t changed. In light of this knowledge, I’ll consider taking the Pledge even if it isn’t changed. In light of this, I am also updating in the direction that Giving What We Can shouldn’t change its pledge, in order to protect its brand, to keep it independent from the (possibly misguided) tides of effective altruism in the future, and to respect the preferences of its members, as individuals and as a whole community, who joined under the impression that they took the Pledge based upon its original tenets.
The pledge specifically includes ‘now and in future’ to make clear that not only currently existing people are important. We already have (and I believe have for many years had) members who donate to, for example, the Future of Humanity Institute.
Huh, I had never realised members included people who donated to FHI. I read “now and in the future” to refer to donating in future years. English is an ambiguous language indeed!
It really is. We spent quite a while trying to work out the best way of wording this, in particular trying to avoid weird philosophical jargon (problems of many of us being philosophers...), and this seemed the clearest. Sorry it’s still not fully clear!
I can see it’s hard and I’m sure you put a lot of thought into it. I’d suggest making it as direct as possible—if “people in developing countries, now and in the years to come” means “present and future people in developing countries”, you could say that.
That’s actually quite an awkward ambiguity; whether or not the pledge receives the proposed revision it would be good to clear this up.
Even just dropping the comma before “now” might work for that. Perhaps at that point replacing “now” with “today” would make it read better. But that’s just a minimal change; it might be you can do better by rearranging it further.
One thing that I didn’t make sufficiently clear: It is already the case that donating to an organisation which seeks to prevent future catastrophes (whether that be climate change, global pandemics or whatever) would fulfil the pledge, if you thought that was the most effective way to help those in the developing world. The pledge specifically includes ‘now and in future’ to make clear that not only currently existing people are important. We already have (and I believe have for many years had) members who donate to, for example, the Future of Humanity Institute. That hasn’t in the past caused problems, nor led to us evaluating those charities. This shift would be more relevant for those who think that the most effective causes are animal welfare based, than for those concerned about future risks to humans.
For me, this is an excellent revelation. I rescind the comment I made on Facebook that I wouldn’t take the Pledge if it wasn’t changed. In light of this knowledge, I’ll consider taking the Pledge even if it isn’t changed. In light of this, I am also updating in the direction that Giving What We Can shouldn’t change its pledge, in order to protect its brand, to keep it independent from the (possibly misguided) tides of effective altruism in the future, and to respect the preferences of its members, as individuals and as a whole community, who joined under the impression that they took the Pledge based upon its original tenets.
Huh, I had never realised members included people who donated to FHI. I read “now and in the future” to refer to donating in future years. English is an ambiguous language indeed!
It really is. We spent quite a while trying to work out the best way of wording this, in particular trying to avoid weird philosophical jargon (problems of many of us being philosophers...), and this seemed the clearest. Sorry it’s still not fully clear!
I can see it’s hard and I’m sure you put a lot of thought into it. I’d suggest making it as direct as possible—if “people in developing countries, now and in the years to come” means “present and future people in developing countries”, you could say that.
That’s actually quite an awkward ambiguity; whether or not the pledge receives the proposed revision it would be good to clear this up.
Even just dropping the comma before “now” might work for that. Perhaps at that point replacing “now” with “today” would make it read better. But that’s just a minimal change; it might be you can do better by rearranging it further.