I was initially in favor of the change, but after reading comments from the people who are against it, I’m less sure.
I do currently donate to MIRI. I do this somewhat cautiously—there are good reasons to still be skeptical. If I didn’t donate to MIRI, I’d still think that global poverty would likely not be the best contender for “top charity”, except for PR reasons.
But I do acknowledge that there are already good flagship organizations and networks for non-Global-Poverty EA, and it may be important to preserve the brand integrity of GWWC and not having it bend towards “the generic EA ‘donate a lot of money’ charity.”
The flipside is it is good for the EA community to have a standard of giving larger amounts, and having GWWC represent that has been helpful.
I’m not certain, just wanted to note that as a “Future People” donor, there’s room to think that this is at least an open question.
Thanks, it’s useful to get perspectives from different angles! I definitely agree it seems really important to maintain the focus on poverty alleviation in terms of our mission and charity evaluation. I don’t think that would be problematic. Almost all EA-interested people agree that helping those in developing countries is massively under-rated in the world at large and very important, even if they don’t think it’s the very best cause. So I don’t anticipate pressure from people joining to change the focus of GWWC, even if it is a way to bring together EAs giving to a range of causes.
It might be possible for a coalition of donors, activists, philanthropists, and others concerned primarily about the far future and existential risk reduction to form their own advocacy organization, for which individuals make some sort of public commitment to use a portion of their living effort to help those who may or will live in the future. This may or may not include donations. One such already existing organization that might facilitate such a commitment is the Future of Life Institute.
One problem with this is that it’s still not cause-agnostic. I’m only willing to sign a pledge if it’s cause-agnostic, since in the future I may (and probably will) change my mind about which cause is most effective.
Oh, well, just in addressing the above query, I meant that if existential risk reducers want a community commitment all their own, and Giving What We Can doesn’t change its pledge, then there might be a way for the former group to get their own (of some sort). There are lots of them within effective altruism, so it might be worth their effort. I myself won’t take any donation pledge unless it’s cause-agnostic as well. However, those who are committed to a cause area, and don’t intend to change their mind, have issues separate from us who want a cause-agnostic pledge.
I was initially in favor of the change, but after reading comments from the people who are against it, I’m less sure.
I do currently donate to MIRI. I do this somewhat cautiously—there are good reasons to still be skeptical. If I didn’t donate to MIRI, I’d still think that global poverty would likely not be the best contender for “top charity”, except for PR reasons.
But I do acknowledge that there are already good flagship organizations and networks for non-Global-Poverty EA, and it may be important to preserve the brand integrity of GWWC and not having it bend towards “the generic EA ‘donate a lot of money’ charity.”
The flipside is it is good for the EA community to have a standard of giving larger amounts, and having GWWC represent that has been helpful.
I’m not certain, just wanted to note that as a “Future People” donor, there’s room to think that this is at least an open question.
Thanks, it’s useful to get perspectives from different angles! I definitely agree it seems really important to maintain the focus on poverty alleviation in terms of our mission and charity evaluation. I don’t think that would be problematic. Almost all EA-interested people agree that helping those in developing countries is massively under-rated in the world at large and very important, even if they don’t think it’s the very best cause. So I don’t anticipate pressure from people joining to change the focus of GWWC, even if it is a way to bring together EAs giving to a range of causes.
It might be possible for a coalition of donors, activists, philanthropists, and others concerned primarily about the far future and existential risk reduction to form their own advocacy organization, for which individuals make some sort of public commitment to use a portion of their living effort to help those who may or will live in the future. This may or may not include donations. One such already existing organization that might facilitate such a commitment is the Future of Life Institute.
One problem with this is that it’s still not cause-agnostic. I’m only willing to sign a pledge if it’s cause-agnostic, since in the future I may (and probably will) change my mind about which cause is most effective.
Oh, well, just in addressing the above query, I meant that if existential risk reducers want a community commitment all their own, and Giving What We Can doesn’t change its pledge, then there might be a way for the former group to get their own (of some sort). There are lots of them within effective altruism, so it might be worth their effort. I myself won’t take any donation pledge unless it’s cause-agnostic as well. However, those who are committed to a cause area, and don’t intend to change their mind, have issues separate from us who want a cause-agnostic pledge.