I think you earned that 10%, saved it, and it’s yours to dispose of as you wish. When you’re trading, you are not obligated to trade only for your rent, groceries, tuition, and taxes. You’re allowed to trade for more money than that, which can go to your nightlife, computer games, or donations. The electrical company keeps all the money that FTX paid for electricity, rather than trying to calculate how much they spent on fuel and depreciation and returning the excess amount as a dirty profit, and nobody questions that because the electrical company is not trying to be Good so they don’t look like targets for urged martyrdom.
If you think that donating to this particular cause does the most good, go for it; if it’ll ease your conscience to donate there rather than elsewhere when you were planning to donate anyways, go for it; if you feel like this is what you should do to be true to your deontology, do it and have no regrets.
But I am going to push back against the idea that you didn’t already earn that 10%. You did; you already performed all of the services that the Future Fund offered to pay you for. The amount that you trade your labor for in excess of rent and groceries is also yours. And it now being yours, you should do with it what you feel rightest about doing—but do so freely, not out of guilt or obligation. I strongly suspect you of being an unusually good person on the basis of having engaged in mutually beneficial trade with the Future Fund rather than any number of better-paying or more career-building employers; I won’t tell you to hold yourself to a low standard, but only you have the right to hold yourself to any higher standard than that.
I think you earned that 10%, saved it, and it’s yours to dispose of as you wish. When you’re trading, you are not obligated to trade only for your rent, groceries, tuition, and taxes. You’re allowed to trade for more money than that, which can go to your nightlife, computer games, or donations. The electrical company keeps all the money that FTX paid for electricity, rather than trying to calculate how much they spent on fuel and depreciation and returning the excess amount as a dirty profit, and nobody questions that because the electrical company is not trying to be Good so they don’t look like targets for urged martyrdom.
If you think that donating to this particular cause does the most good, go for it; if it’ll ease your conscience to donate there rather than elsewhere when you were planning to donate anyways, go for it; if you feel like this is what you should do to be true to your deontology, do it and have no regrets.
But I am going to push back against the idea that you didn’t already earn that 10%. You did; you already performed all of the services that the Future Fund offered to pay you for. The amount that you trade your labor for in excess of rent and groceries is also yours. And it now being yours, you should do with it what you feel rightest about doing—but do so freely, not out of guilt or obligation. I strongly suspect you of being an unusually good person on the basis of having engaged in mutually beneficial trade with the Future Fund rather than any number of better-paying or more career-building employers; I won’t tell you to hold yourself to a low standard, but only you have the right to hold yourself to any higher standard than that.