Your key rebuttal to the pro-giving-sooner arguments appears to be the finding that a “give at death” policy would lead to higher annual donations in a population of effective altruists, even in year 1. I can see others are questioning whether this claim is actually true, but I think this is missing the point. I think even if this claim is true, it is not relevant.
The question that each individual donor needs to answer is: What is the marginal impact of donating money now vs investing it and then donating it at some later time? (for each possible later time they could donate, which could even be after their death) I don’t think the finding of your simulation actually has any bearing on this question.
This is because your finding is clearly highly dependent on mortality statistics. For example, if the variance in life-expectancy were lower so that no one died in the next 5 years, then the finding that donations are higher even in year 1 would no longer hold. On the other hand, the question of when a given donation will have the highest marginal impact has nothing to do with mortality statistics among effective altruists. So the two questions shouldn’t have anything to do with each other.
If you are finding that one policy is leading to more wealth being moved than another (even after accounting for gains from interest), then I think you are also advocating a change in how much people should give, not just a change in when what they give should be given.
People can always give annually and donate a significant chunk of their wealth at death.
Sure you could posit what would happen if nobody died but you could also posit what would happen if the value of money suddenly dropped to zero. People do die and in a large enough population this is predictable. In my model, the population of 750k people with a real world based age distribution did the trick.
What is the appropriate gauge of the effectiveness of a giving strategy if it’s not how much wealth is being moved? Yes I’m advocating for giving more but 1. It’s after you’re done enjoying it, which for a lot of people is the main reason for not giving in the first place, which should alienate less people and make the argument about the EA population skewing young less of a problem, and 2. If you have more wealth because you invested, you have more to give and more left over (for inheritance in my model). Yes you can give during life and at death. The reason I tried to model 10% of annual income vs. 10, 20… 50% at death was to see how many conventionally selfish people could be brought into the fold, have their cake during life and eat their guilt away with their death giving and have the amount of money donated in the population per unit time be the same or better. I’m definitely having trouble understanding any argument that doesn’t directly address money donated in the population over time.
So I think you’re trying to make two points at once (the points 1 and 2 as you’ve defined them) and that has prompted a bit of a negative reaction because most people responding (including me) are focusing on point 2, which is a well worn argument in EA circles that you seemed to be making an overly strong claim about.
To state it more clearly, I think most people have interpreted you as claiming:
“If you have X dollars that you want to donate, then it is better to invest them, and donate the X dollars + investment returns at death, than to donate the X dollars immediately”
Whereas what you are actually claiming is:
“The policy ‘give X% at death’ is an easier sell than the policy ‘give Y% of your income each year’, even when X is significantly bigger than Y, and in a realistic population of givers could result in more wealth being moved in total, even in year 1.”
Do you agree with that summary?
If so, I think that’s an interesting claim, and I’m sorry that a lot of us have been thrown off by the phrasing! My concerns with this claim would be:
It involves an empirical claim about donor psychology that can’t be answered just with a simulation (giving at death isn’t free since lots of people want to leave something for their family, so the idea they’d be willing to give more under this policy needs more justification).
I think comparing annual donors who give nothing at death to people who give everything at death is a false dichotomy. I expect most GWWC pledgers to also give a substantial amount of their wealth at death (in addition to what they give each year while alive).
You should make clearer that you’re advocating for a change in public messaging, not a change to what an ideal altruistic donor should do with their donations (the post title is not currently written in this way).
I think there is a psychological and messaging discussion that flows from this, but I want people to poke at it for sure, and I’m feeling like population based analysis is more in line with EA than individual analysis.
Closer! Without the psychology and even when comparing 10% of annual income vs 10% of net worth at death, in a population of 750k givers that represent a normal distribution of ages and normal death rates, giving 10% net worth at death produces more donated dollars per year (even in year 1) versus giving 10% of income.
It’s still a psychology question! The people who die in year 1 and make up those increased donations haven’t had time to accrue interest, so they’re donating money you claim they’d never have donated if they were only 10% per year pledgers, which is a claim about donor psychology, and an unrealistic one at that!
Your key rebuttal to the pro-giving-sooner arguments appears to be the finding that a “give at death” policy would lead to higher annual donations in a population of effective altruists, even in year 1. I can see others are questioning whether this claim is actually true, but I think this is missing the point. I think even if this claim is true, it is not relevant.
The question that each individual donor needs to answer is: What is the marginal impact of donating money now vs investing it and then donating it at some later time? (for each possible later time they could donate, which could even be after their death) I don’t think the finding of your simulation actually has any bearing on this question.
This is because your finding is clearly highly dependent on mortality statistics. For example, if the variance in life-expectancy were lower so that no one died in the next 5 years, then the finding that donations are higher even in year 1 would no longer hold. On the other hand, the question of when a given donation will have the highest marginal impact has nothing to do with mortality statistics among effective altruists. So the two questions shouldn’t have anything to do with each other.
If you are finding that one policy is leading to more wealth being moved than another (even after accounting for gains from interest), then I think you are also advocating a change in how much people should give, not just a change in when what they give should be given.
People can always give annually and donate a significant chunk of their wealth at death.
Sure you could posit what would happen if nobody died but you could also posit what would happen if the value of money suddenly dropped to zero. People do die and in a large enough population this is predictable. In my model, the population of 750k people with a real world based age distribution did the trick.
What is the appropriate gauge of the effectiveness of a giving strategy if it’s not how much wealth is being moved? Yes I’m advocating for giving more but 1. It’s after you’re done enjoying it, which for a lot of people is the main reason for not giving in the first place, which should alienate less people and make the argument about the EA population skewing young less of a problem, and 2. If you have more wealth because you invested, you have more to give and more left over (for inheritance in my model). Yes you can give during life and at death. The reason I tried to model 10% of annual income vs. 10, 20… 50% at death was to see how many conventionally selfish people could be brought into the fold, have their cake during life and eat their guilt away with their death giving and have the amount of money donated in the population per unit time be the same or better. I’m definitely having trouble understanding any argument that doesn’t directly address money donated in the population over time.
So I think you’re trying to make two points at once (the points 1 and 2 as you’ve defined them) and that has prompted a bit of a negative reaction because most people responding (including me) are focusing on point 2, which is a well worn argument in EA circles that you seemed to be making an overly strong claim about.
To state it more clearly, I think most people have interpreted you as claiming:
“If you have X dollars that you want to donate, then it is better to invest them, and donate the X dollars + investment returns at death, than to donate the X dollars immediately”
Whereas what you are actually claiming is:
“The policy ‘give X% at death’ is an easier sell than the policy ‘give Y% of your income each year’, even when X is significantly bigger than Y, and in a realistic population of givers could result in more wealth being moved in total, even in year 1.”
Do you agree with that summary?
If so, I think that’s an interesting claim, and I’m sorry that a lot of us have been thrown off by the phrasing! My concerns with this claim would be:
It involves an empirical claim about donor psychology that can’t be answered just with a simulation (giving at death isn’t free since lots of people want to leave something for their family, so the idea they’d be willing to give more under this policy needs more justification).
I think comparing annual donors who give nothing at death to people who give everything at death is a false dichotomy. I expect most GWWC pledgers to also give a substantial amount of their wealth at death (in addition to what they give each year while alive).
You should make clearer that you’re advocating for a change in public messaging, not a change to what an ideal altruistic donor should do with their donations (the post title is not currently written in this way).
I think there is a psychological and messaging discussion that flows from this, but I want people to poke at it for sure, and I’m feeling like population based analysis is more in line with EA than individual analysis.
Closer! Without the psychology and even when comparing 10% of annual income vs 10% of net worth at death, in a population of 750k givers that represent a normal distribution of ages and normal death rates, giving 10% net worth at death produces more donated dollars per year (even in year 1) versus giving 10% of income.
It’s still a psychology question! The people who die in year 1 and make up those increased donations haven’t had time to accrue interest, so they’re donating money you claim they’d never have donated if they were only 10% per year pledgers, which is a claim about donor psychology, and an unrealistic one at that!
I think most people are saving investing for life so I think I’m looking at it in more of a real world population than in a vacuum