You donât seem to account for inflation. $10 buys a bed net now. $10 will buy a lot less in 60 years.
Helping people accrues its own compound interest: saving someone from death, disability or grief now makes them happier, healthier, more productive members of society, better able to contribute and lift up those around them. Better to have these benefits sooner rather than later.
By your same logic, why stop at death? Put it in some trust fund to compound and be distributed in 100, 1000, 1 Billion years
#2 is what changed my mind a few years ago. An index fund might give me 7% annual returns, but I suspect that investing in ridding a village of malaria has a much higher ROI, just not for me. The model wouldâve been much stronger if it had included this effect of increasing othersâ resources.
Maybe Iâm not following, but if there was a general consensus and coordination (easier said than done) for giving at the end, there would be frequent enough giving by the die-ers that it mathematically eclipses the consistent giver model⊠at least thatâs what I saw and am asking about.
I donât see the report considering the growth of money in recipientsâ pockets. It treats giving like throwing money into a black hole, not as another investment with returns.
To put it concretely, letâs say person A is in the global top 5% income wise and person B is below the poverty line. Person A (most on this forum) can then choose to invest their money, grow it and give at death.
Letâs ignore risk of value drift and say you manage to grow it 7% annually. Thatâs nice, but instead giving it away means person B can
Buy a bike to reach work more quickly, letting them work more
Buy an electrical lamp their child can use to do homework without poisoning the air of their home
Upgrade the walls and roofing of that home so theyâre all sick less often and can work their way out of poverty
All of these things make the money grow in person Bâs pockets as well. My prior (medium epistemic status) is that this growth trumps the 7% an index fund can offer. I argue that after 60-odd years of compoundingâmost EAs are young and healthyâperson B has more than they wouldâve if they got the money all in one lump sum from person A at death.
So this model only considers the resources of person A at death, when what we really care about is the resources of persons A and B combined.
Because in a sufficiently large enough population of givers, there are people dying constantly. So itâs just a matter of mathematically modeling it out to see what the optimized wait time is. Iâm not sure about the inflation part, anybody that invest has to invest against inflation, but still chooses to invest their money as opposed to spending it all now.
Many EAs also believe that this may be âthe most important centuryâ, and that many pivotal decisions (e.g. around AI) will happen within the next few years or decades rather than being just as influenceable in 2080 or so.
I ran the numbers based on this exact population distribution and count. Itâs a relatively small population and I think it misrepresents the world population of charitable people, but in any event, if you have <2k people who skew young, youâd want to ease into the shift towards donating at death to cover the first few decades, but once the pump is primed youâll be able to go full death and outpace.
Simulated Giving Strategy for Young-Skewed Altruist Population
We modeled 1,806 altruists with a young-skewed age distribution (mostly 20-40). The strategy
combines modest lifetime giving with significant giving at death:
- Early career (20-40): donate ~7.5% of income.
- Mid career (40-60): donate ~2.5% of income.
- At death: donate 50% of net worth.
Results over 100 years (in billions USD):
Decade Income Donations Death Donations Pooled Wealth
10 0.07 0.05 0.95
20 0.05 0.14 3.29
30 0.03 0.24 7.74
40 0.02 0.47 15.13
50 0.02 0.60 27.09
60 0.02 3.25 41.20
70 0.03 6.90 51.47
80 0.04 5.40 58.51
90 0.04 2.36 66.34
100 0.03 2.57 75.04
Key insights:
- Income donations provide immediate but modest support.
- Death donations grow over time and ultimately surpass income-based giving.
- The pooled wealth of the population continues to grow, providing future security and flexibility.A hybrid strategy balances urgent needs today and maximizes long-term impact.
That may be a hurdle for sure and may make my model idealistic. I wonder how charitable the 45 and overs are regardless of whether they identify as EA or not
You donât seem to account for inflation. $10 buys a bed net now. $10 will buy a lot less in 60 years.
Helping people accrues its own compound interest: saving someone from death, disability or grief now makes them happier, healthier, more productive members of society, better able to contribute and lift up those around them. Better to have these benefits sooner rather than later.
By your same logic, why stop at death? Put it in some trust fund to compound and be distributed in 100, 1000, 1 Billion years
#2 is what changed my mind a few years ago. An index fund might give me 7% annual returns, but I suspect that investing in ridding a village of malaria has a much higher ROI, just not for me. The model wouldâve been much stronger if it had included this effect of increasing othersâ resources.
Maybe Iâm not following, but if there was a general consensus and coordination (easier said than done) for giving at the end, there would be frequent enough giving by the die-ers that it mathematically eclipses the consistent giver model⊠at least thatâs what I saw and am asking about.
I donât see the report considering the growth of money in recipientsâ pockets. It treats giving like throwing money into a black hole, not as another investment with returns.
To put it concretely, letâs say person A is in the global top 5% income wise and person B is below the poverty line. Person A (most on this forum) can then choose to invest their money, grow it and give at death.
Letâs ignore risk of value drift and say you manage to grow it 7% annually. Thatâs nice, but instead giving it away means person B can
Buy a bike to reach work more quickly, letting them work more
Buy an electrical lamp their child can use to do homework without poisoning the air of their home
Upgrade the walls and roofing of that home so theyâre all sick less often and can work their way out of poverty
All of these things make the money grow in person Bâs pockets as well. My prior (medium epistemic status) is that this growth trumps the 7% an index fund can offer. I argue that after 60-odd years of compoundingâmost EAs are young and healthyâperson B has more than they wouldâve if they got the money all in one lump sum from person A at death.
So this model only considers the resources of person A at death, when what we really care about is the resources of persons A and B combined.
In a population of givers, if the flow of donations is higher with one va the other paradigm, the effects on B are greater. Right?
Because in a sufficiently large enough population of givers, there are people dying constantly. So itâs just a matter of mathematically modeling it out to see what the optimized wait time is. Iâm not sure about the inflation part, anybody that invest has to invest against inflation, but still chooses to invest their money as opposed to spending it all now.
EAs are a relatively young population, with a lot of years before most will die naturally. From the EA Survey: https://ââforum.effectivealtruism.org/ââposts/ââz4Wxd2dnTqDmFZrej/ââea-survey-2024-demographics#Age
Many EAs also believe that this may be âthe most important centuryâ, and that many pivotal decisions (e.g. around AI) will happen within the next few years or decades rather than being just as influenceable in 2080 or so.
I ran the numbers based on this exact population distribution and count. Itâs a relatively small population and I think it misrepresents the world population of charitable people, but in any event, if you have <2k people who skew young, youâd want to ease into the shift towards donating at death to cover the first few decades, but once the pump is primed youâll be able to go full death and outpace.
Simulated Giving Strategy for Young-Skewed Altruist Population
We modeled 1,806 altruists with a young-skewed age distribution (mostly 20-40). The strategy
combines modest lifetime giving with significant giving at death:
- Early career (20-40): donate ~7.5% of income.
- Mid career (40-60): donate ~2.5% of income.
- At death: donate 50% of net worth.
Results over 100 years (in billions USD):
Decade Income Donations Death Donations Pooled Wealth
10 0.07 0.05 0.95
20 0.05 0.14 3.29
30 0.03 0.24 7.74
40 0.02 0.47 15.13
50 0.02 0.60 27.09
60 0.02 3.25 41.20
70 0.03 6.90 51.47
80 0.04 5.40 58.51
90 0.04 2.36 66.34
100 0.03 2.57 75.04
Key insights:
- Income donations provide immediate but modest support.
- Death donations grow over time and ultimately surpass income-based giving.
- The pooled wealth of the population continues to grow, providing future security and flexibility.A hybrid strategy balances urgent needs today and maximizes long-term impact.
That may be a hurdle for sure and may make my model idealistic. I wonder how charitable the 45 and overs are regardless of whether they identify as EA or not