Julia and I had been giving half since 2014, but in 2025 we drew on our savings to donate 81%.
Impressive!
Since we’re in a good enough position financially and donating seems very urgent, I now think we should stop contributing to have more to donate going forward...
Even though we’re drawing down our savings to donate, our net worth rose 18% over the last year (adjusted for inflation).
Of course returns vary, but if you gave away 80% of your income and your net worth still increased, that means you are close to retirement, so I agree it doesn’t make sense to continue to contribute to retirement.
I’d put about 10% on futures where things go very badly, where I’m not here to write a followup and you’re not here to read one.
On mirror biology, my impression is the risk there is mostly more than two years out, because it’s really very hard. Do you think this specific biorisk is coming sooner?
On relocating, I don’t think it would make sense for us to move in response to a bio incident. Instead, I’m more focused on preparations we can take at home.
I would like to know why you don’t think it would make sense to relocate to a place like New Zealand or Australia. My thought is that they demonstrated that they had the will and the functioning government to suppress COVID, and can take advantage of their isolation. You may be able to prevent your family from getting the disease in the US, but then you may have to deal with no electricity or water or fuel if the vital employees are unable or unwilling to show up to work. Australia could likely keep industry functioning conventionally, but even New Zealand might be able to improvise biofuels or go back to animal power.
My top reason for not relocating is that I’m working on preventing this kind of bad outcome, which I think I can do most effectively from Boston.
But even if I were doing work that could be done from anywhere, I don’t think I’d relocate: that only helps in a small fraction of the doomy futures, I think there are also a lot of good futures, and I really like living in Boston.
To be clear, my relocation post was for getting ready to relocate quickly in response to a trigger such as a new infectious, fatal disease being discovered.
Impressive!
Of course returns vary, but if you gave away 80% of your income and your net worth still increased, that means you are close to retirement, so I agree it doesn’t make sense to continue to contribute to retirement.
As per your comment on LW, biorisk is a large proportion of the risks in the next 2 years. Are you personally preparing to protect yourself and family from mirror bio or to relocate?
On mirror biology, my impression is the risk there is mostly more than two years out, because it’s really very hard. Do you think this specific biorisk is coming sooner?
On relocating, I don’t think it would make sense for us to move in response to a bio incident. Instead, I’m more focused on preparations we can take at home.
No, I don’t think mirror bio is coming sooner.
I would like to know why you don’t think it would make sense to relocate to a place like New Zealand or Australia. My thought is that they demonstrated that they had the will and the functioning government to suppress COVID, and can take advantage of their isolation. You may be able to prevent your family from getting the disease in the US, but then you may have to deal with no electricity or water or fuel if the vital employees are unable or unwilling to show up to work. Australia could likely keep industry functioning conventionally, but even New Zealand might be able to improvise biofuels or go back to animal power.
My top reason for not relocating is that I’m working on preventing this kind of bad outcome, which I think I can do most effectively from Boston.
But even if I were doing work that could be done from anywhere, I don’t think I’d relocate: that only helps in a small fraction of the doomy futures, I think there are also a lot of good futures, and I really like living in Boston.
To be clear, my relocation post was for getting ready to relocate quickly in response to a trigger such as a new infectious, fatal disease being discovered.