Thanks for the post, it is interesting to see how other people are thinking about this question and I see it as valuable, although I am also somewhat critical toward this whole endeavor.
Maybe I am too naive or not thinking deep enough but with all of these giving now vs. giving later discussions I am somewhat worried about the mindset which is underlying such considerations. While I appreciate people investing time and resources into trying to understand how to have the biggest impact, just taking the perspective of a single investor comes across as somewhat narrow minded and selfish. What you basically seem to be calculating is the optimal degree of free riding that you can get away with to maximize the impact of your own dollars. Maybe itâs good knowledge to have where that optimal point seems to be but I am somewhat worried about this becoming the underlying philosophy of longtermist giving.
For instance, longtermism is itself a rather new idea and people thinking about how they can invest as little as possible seems⌠yes, to some degree rational but also pretty risky in terms of ensuring success giving the many options for failure that exist in our world. I note that âcapacity buildingâ interventions are often explicitly excluded from these giving later considerations but giving off the whole vibe of âletâs freeride as much as possibleâ doesnât seem to bode well for such initiatives as well. There is something like image, perception, and momentum and it really feels like this is strongly neglected in these kinds of discussions.
Having said that I am in favor of longtermist thinking but I would encourage to take a broader âcommunity levelâ perspective. Wouldnât it be more effective to think about optimal rates of investment into community growth and then look for ways to get to those numbers and distributing them fairly rather than focusing on the best outcome for an individual investor and then circle back to what this means for the community? I mean your whole calculation depends on the possible return of investment that you can get from giving now vs. giving later. If we donât have a clear sense of what that RoI is right now how can you make good individual decisions?
What you basically seem to be calculating is the optimal degree of free riding that you can get away with to maximize the impact of your own dollars.
If other people spend too much now and not enough later, then by investing, you do more good for the world than if you spent now. This maximizes the impact of your own dollars without reducing the impact of anyone elseâs, so it increases the total well-being of the world. And itâs the optimal strategy if your goal is to maximize total well-being.
Thanks for the counterpoint, I think thatâs an interesting perspective and in the abstract valid.
Nevertheless, as far as I can tell, in practice these discussions here donât seem to focus on the assessment of whether âother people spend too much now and not enough laterâ beyond the general assertion that people tend to discount the feature and the conclusion that, thus, there are opportunities to gain comparatively by investing.
However, what I havenât really seen are good arguments that people are actually spending too much now and not enough later[1] or models which model this aspect in some way. In another comment I have outlined in more detail, why I think that it is important to explicitly consider the ânatureâ of problem solving when making such analyses and decisions.
Long story short, I think current models of giving now vs. giving later are way too simple and additional consideration about problem solving in general would lead me to believe that giving later should not become âthe defaultâ for longtermist givingâat least until we have set up an appropriate infrastructure to effectively identify and address problems as they arise. However, I donât want to misrepresent the position of giving later advocates who have often acknowledged that giving now that takes the form of âinvestmentsâ (as I am suggesting) is somewhat exempt from the discussion. I agree that there might be substantial room for investments as part of wise philanthropic activity, I just donât think itâs a winning strategy by itself. Thus, what I mostly seem to disagree with is the framing and emphasis of the debate.
Circling back to my comment on free riding. Simply postponing giving into the future under the assumption that other people will figure out what to do by then seems dangerous unless appropriate measures are taken to ensure that actual progress does happen at a reasonable rate as the world could also become much worse (e.g. climate change). However, postponing giving into the future, makes the individual who is postponing comparatively better of in the future, which would be a plus. Thus, there is in interesting dilemma situation here, where altruists who are not 100% aligned could get into conflict about who should invest when and how much to maximize overall expected value.
To avoid any potential conflicts as much as possible, care should be taken to communicate why specific decision to give now or later where made and how this is expected to affect the community as a whole. For instance, I would expect an organization considering giving later at a large scale like Founders Pledge to clearly articulate their strategy and what the EA community can expect from them now and in the future in a way that can be checked for value alignment over time. Otherwise, it seems totally plausible that opaque and non-transparent behavior could be perceived as free riding on the investments of the community as a whole.
To me that notion actually seems to be a little bit paradoxical because the notion of giving later seems to imply that there will be better opportunities in the future but at the same time we seem to expect less giving then. Economics 101 would suggest that better opportunities would attract more buyers. Thus, wouldnât we need some other type of argument which considers the nature of the problem under consideration to justify giving later?
Thanks for the post, it is interesting to see how other people are thinking about this question and I see it as valuable, although I am also somewhat critical toward this whole endeavor.
Maybe I am too naive or not thinking deep enough but with all of these giving now vs. giving later discussions I am somewhat worried about the mindset which is underlying such considerations. While I appreciate people investing time and resources into trying to understand how to have the biggest impact, just taking the perspective of a single investor comes across as somewhat narrow minded and selfish. What you basically seem to be calculating is the optimal degree of free riding that you can get away with to maximize the impact of your own dollars. Maybe itâs good knowledge to have where that optimal point seems to be but I am somewhat worried about this becoming the underlying philosophy of longtermist giving.
For instance, longtermism is itself a rather new idea and people thinking about how they can invest as little as possible seems⌠yes, to some degree rational but also pretty risky in terms of ensuring success giving the many options for failure that exist in our world. I note that âcapacity buildingâ interventions are often explicitly excluded from these giving later considerations but giving off the whole vibe of âletâs freeride as much as possibleâ doesnât seem to bode well for such initiatives as well. There is something like image, perception, and momentum and it really feels like this is strongly neglected in these kinds of discussions.
Having said that I am in favor of longtermist thinking but I would encourage to take a broader âcommunity levelâ perspective. Wouldnât it be more effective to think about optimal rates of investment into community growth and then look for ways to get to those numbers and distributing them fairly rather than focusing on the best outcome for an individual investor and then circle back to what this means for the community? I mean your whole calculation depends on the possible return of investment that you can get from giving now vs. giving later. If we donât have a clear sense of what that RoI is right now how can you make good individual decisions?
Open to be shown the errors in my thinking!
If other people spend too much now and not enough later, then by investing, you do more good for the world than if you spent now. This maximizes the impact of your own dollars without reducing the impact of anyone elseâs, so it increases the total well-being of the world. And itâs the optimal strategy if your goal is to maximize total well-being.
Thanks for the counterpoint, I think thatâs an interesting perspective and in the abstract valid.
Nevertheless, as far as I can tell, in practice these discussions here donât seem to focus on the assessment of whether âother people spend too much now and not enough laterâ beyond the general assertion that people tend to discount the feature and the conclusion that, thus, there are opportunities to gain comparatively by investing.
However, what I havenât really seen are good arguments that people are actually spending too much now and not enough later[1] or models which model this aspect in some way. In another comment I have outlined in more detail, why I think that it is important to explicitly consider the ânatureâ of problem solving when making such analyses and decisions.
Long story short, I think current models of giving now vs. giving later are way too simple and additional consideration about problem solving in general would lead me to believe that giving later should not become âthe defaultâ for longtermist givingâat least until we have set up an appropriate infrastructure to effectively identify and address problems as they arise. However, I donât want to misrepresent the position of giving later advocates who have often acknowledged that giving now that takes the form of âinvestmentsâ (as I am suggesting) is somewhat exempt from the discussion. I agree that there might be substantial room for investments as part of wise philanthropic activity, I just donât think itâs a winning strategy by itself. Thus, what I mostly seem to disagree with is the framing and emphasis of the debate.
Circling back to my comment on free riding. Simply postponing giving into the future under the assumption that other people will figure out what to do by then seems dangerous unless appropriate measures are taken to ensure that actual progress does happen at a reasonable rate as the world could also become much worse (e.g. climate change). However, postponing giving into the future, makes the individual who is postponing comparatively better of in the future, which would be a plus. Thus, there is in interesting dilemma situation here, where altruists who are not 100% aligned could get into conflict about who should invest when and how much to maximize overall expected value.
To avoid any potential conflicts as much as possible, care should be taken to communicate why specific decision to give now or later where made and how this is expected to affect the community as a whole. For instance, I would expect an organization considering giving later at a large scale like Founders Pledge to clearly articulate their strategy and what the EA community can expect from them now and in the future in a way that can be checked for value alignment over time. Otherwise, it seems totally plausible that opaque and non-transparent behavior could be perceived as free riding on the investments of the community as a whole.
To me that notion actually seems to be a little bit paradoxical because the notion of giving later seems to imply that there will be better opportunities in the future but at the same time we seem to expect less giving then. Economics 101 would suggest that better opportunities would attract more buyers. Thus, wouldnât we need some other type of argument which considers the nature of the problem under consideration to justify giving later?