The old debate over âgiving now vs laterâ is now sometimes phrased as a debate about âpatient philanthropyâ. 80,000 Hours recently wrote a post using the term âpatient longtermismâ, which seems intended to:
focus only on how the debate over patient philanthropy applies to longtermists
generalise the debate to also include questions about work (e.g., should I do a directly useful job now, or build career capital and do directly useful work later?)
They contrast this against the term âurgent longtermismâ, to describe the view that favours doing more donations and work sooner.
I think the terms âpatient longtermismâ and âurgent longtermismâ are both useful. One reason I think âurgent longtermismâ is useful is that it doesnât sound pejorative, whereas âimpatient longtermismâ would.
Like âpatient philanthropyâ and unlike âpatient longtermismâ, this term is cause-neutral.
But like âpatient longtermismâ and unlike âpatient philanthropyâ, this term clearly relates to both work and donations, not merely to donations.
Discussions about âpatient philanthropyâ do often make some reference to optimal timing of work, but itâs not usually central. Also, the term âphilanthropyâ is typically used just for donations.
Urgent altruism
Again, this is partly to avoid negative connotations, as is my next suggestion.
I donât think âpatientâ and âurgentâ are opposites, in the way Phil Trammell originally defined patience. He used âpatientâ to mean a zero pure time preference, and âimpatientâ to mean a nonzero pure time preference. You can believe it is urgent that we spend resources now while still having a pure time preference. Trammellâs paper argued that patient actors should give later, irrespective of how much urgency you believe there is. (Although he carved out some exceptions to this.)
We will call someone âpatientâ if he has low (including zero) pure time preference with respect to the welfare he creates by providing a good.
And I agree that a person with a low or zero pure time preference may still want to use a large portion of their resources now, for example due to thinking now is a much âhingierâ/ââhigher leverageâ time than average, or thinking value drift will be high.
You highlighting this makes me doubt whether 80,000 Hours shouldâve used âpatient longtermismâ as they did, whether they shouldâve used âpatient philanthropyâ as they arguably did*, and whether I shouldâve proposed the term âpatient altruismâ for the position that we should give/âwork later rather than now (roughly speaking).
On the other hand, if we ignore Trammellâs definition of the term, I think âpatient Xâ does seem like a natural fit for the position that we should do X later, rather than now.
Do you have other ideas for terms to use in place of âpatientâ? Maybe âdelayedâ? (Iâm definitely open to renaming the tag. Other people can as well.)
If the case for patient philanthropy is as strong as Phil believes, many of us should be trying to improve the world in a very different way than we are now.
He points out that on top of being able to dispense vastly more, whenever your trustees decide to use your gift to improve the world, theyâll also be able to rely on the much broader knowledge available to future generations. [...]
And thereâs a third reason to wait as well. What are the odds that we today live at the most critical point in history, when resources happen to have the greatest ability to do good? Itâs possible. But the future may be very long, so there has to be a good chance that some moment in the future will be both more pivotal and more malleable than our own.
Of course, there are many objections to this proposal. If you start a foundation you hope will wait around for centuries, might it not be destroyed in a war, revolution, or financial collapse?
Or might it not drift from its original goals, eventually just serving the interest of its distant future trustees, rather than the noble pursuits you originally intended?
Or perhaps it could fail for the reverse reason, by staying true to your original vision â if that vision turns out to be as deeply morally mistaken as the Rhodesâ Scholarships initial charter, which limited it to âwhite Christian menâ.
Alternatively, maybe the world will change in the meantime, making your gift useless. At one end, humanity might destroy itself before your trust tries to do anything with the money. Or perhaps everyone in the future will be so fabulously wealthy, or the problems of the world already so overcome, that your philanthropy will no longer be able to do much good.
Are these concerns, all of them legitimate, enough to overcome the case in favour of patient philanthropy? [...]
Should we have a mixed strategy, where some altruists are patient and others impatient?
This suggests to me that 80k is, at least in that post, taking âpatient philanthropyâ to refer not just to a low or zero pure time preference, but instead to a low or zero rate of discounting overall, or to a favouring of giving/âworking later rather than now.
The old debate over âgiving now vs laterâ is now sometimes phrased as a debate about âpatient philanthropyâ. 80,000 Hours recently wrote a post using the term âpatient longtermismâ, which seems intended to:
focus only on how the debate over patient philanthropy applies to longtermists
generalise the debate to also include questions about work (e.g., should I do a directly useful job now, or build career capital and do directly useful work later?)
They contrast this against the term âurgent longtermismâ, to describe the view that favours doing more donations and work sooner.
I think the terms âpatient longtermismâ and âurgent longtermismâ are both useful. One reason I think âurgent longtermismâ is useful is that it doesnât sound pejorative, whereas âimpatient longtermismâ would.
I suggest we also use three additional terms:
Patient altruism
Like âpatient philanthropyâ and unlike âpatient longtermismâ, this term is cause-neutral.
But like âpatient longtermismâ and unlike âpatient philanthropyâ, this term clearly relates to both work and donations, not merely to donations.
Discussions about âpatient philanthropyâ do often make some reference to optimal timing of work, but itâs not usually central. Also, the term âphilanthropyâ is typically used just for donations.
Urgent altruism
Again, this is partly to avoid negative connotations, as is my next suggestion.
Urgent philanthropy
I donât think âpatientâ and âurgentâ are opposites, in the way Phil Trammell originally defined patience. He used âpatientâ to mean a zero pure time preference, and âimpatientâ to mean a nonzero pure time preference. You can believe it is urgent that we spend resources now while still having a pure time preference. Trammellâs paper argued that patient actors should give later, irrespective of how much urgency you believe there is. (Although he carved out some exceptions to this.)
Yes, Trammell writes:
And I agree that a person with a low or zero pure time preference may still want to use a large portion of their resources now, for example due to thinking now is a much âhingierâ/ââhigher leverageâ time than average, or thinking value drift will be high.
You highlighting this makes me doubt whether 80,000 Hours shouldâve used âpatient longtermismâ as they did, whether they shouldâve used âpatient philanthropyâ as they arguably did*, and whether I shouldâve proposed the term âpatient altruismâ for the position that we should give/âwork later rather than now (roughly speaking).
On the other hand, if we ignore Trammellâs definition of the term, I think âpatient Xâ does seem like a natural fit for the position that we should do X later, rather than now.
Do you have other ideas for terms to use in place of âpatientâ? Maybe âdelayedâ? (Iâm definitely open to renaming the tag. Other people can as well.)
*80k write:
This suggests to me that 80k is, at least in that post, taking âpatient philanthropyâ to refer not just to a low or zero pure time preference, but instead to a low or zero rate of discounting overall, or to a favouring of giving/âworking later rather than now.