A very cool idea and nice implementation, thanks for sharing! I sympathize a lot with the idea and “we take responsibility to correct negative consequences of our actions where feasible” could be a good norm to coordinate around.
Some comments
I want the website to give confident, simple numbers so people don’t have to think about the uncertainty ranges. I want them to be given a simple number with no uncertainty, and explain the uncertainty further into the site if they dig further.
I think this makes a lot of sense! It can be tricky to get the balance right and at the moment I think some formulations that try to emphasize clarity err in the direction of being too confident—but I fully understand that it is a lot of effort to do these things well.
Formulations on the website:
Inspired by effective altruism principles, we’ve identified the four areas where your money can do the most good—and calculated exactly how much it takes to balance your share.
The formulation “the four cause areas where your money can do the most good” seems mistaken? If I got this right, the reasoning is to effectively undo (offset) the harms associated with one’s personal lifestyle for major areas individually. The effectiveness mostly enters when deciding on which org to donate to within the chosen cause area. Of course, to some degree, the cause areas are still chosen with effectiveness in mind but I think that a different formulation could capture the reasoning better. A suggestion might be
“Inspired by effective altruism principles, for each of the major areas where our lifestyle comes along with negative impact, we’ve identified where your money can do the most good—and calculated how much it takes to balance your share.”
Offset your impact
I feel the formulation “undo/offset my impact” is a little unfortunate as, in my mind, impact mainly is related to intended and thus positive consequences. It takes a little extra concentration to realize that in this case I do want to get rid of the impact. On the other hand, I cannot find a similarly short alternative formulation. Maybe “rectify your impact” could work?
I think this makes a lot of sense! It can be tricky to get the balance right and at the moment I think some formulations that try to emphasize clarity err in the direction of being too confident—but I fully understand that it is a lot of effort to do these things well.
Agreed here. I think my website errs on the side of overconfident right now but I feel like that will help engagement for now. Maybe later I can try to surface more of the uncertainty.
“Inspired by effective altruism principles, for each of the major areas where our lifestyle comes along with negative impact, we’ve identified where your money can do the most good—and calculated how much it takes to balance your share.”
This is a really good callout, especially because I’m not actually sure (and think it’s slightly unlikely) that these are actually the areas where you can do the most good. They’re just the areas that I think people hold a disproportionate amount of guilt towards.
I feel the formulation “undo/offset my impact” is a little unfortunate as, in my mind, impact mainly is related to intended and thus positive consequences. It takes a little extra concentration to realize that in this case I do want to get rid of the impact. On the other hand, I cannot find a similarly short alternative formulation. Maybe “rectify your impact” could work?
Agreed with the sentiment and I also haven’t landed on wording I feel super confident about. I’m thinking about toying around with “harmful impact” to keep the branding around harm consistent. Not sure I agree that impact is just intended, in my mind it’s the result of what you do regardless of intention, but I’m not sure how many people share my view. I’ll keep workshopping this wording.
A very cool idea and nice implementation, thanks for sharing! I sympathize a lot with the idea and “we take responsibility to correct negative consequences of our actions where feasible” could be a good norm to coordinate around.
Some comments
I think this makes a lot of sense! It can be tricky to get the balance right and at the moment I think some formulations that try to emphasize clarity err in the direction of being too confident—but I fully understand that it is a lot of effort to do these things well.
Formulations on the website:
The formulation “the four cause areas where your money can do the most good” seems mistaken? If I got this right, the reasoning is to effectively undo (offset) the harms associated with one’s personal lifestyle for major areas individually. The effectiveness mostly enters when deciding on which org to donate to within the chosen cause area. Of course, to some degree, the cause areas are still chosen with effectiveness in mind but I think that a different formulation could capture the reasoning better. A suggestion might be
“Inspired by effective altruism principles, for each of the major areas where our lifestyle comes along with negative impact, we’ve identified where your money can do the most good—and calculated how much it takes to balance your share.”
I feel the formulation “undo/offset my impact” is a little unfortunate as, in my mind, impact mainly is related to intended and thus positive consequences. It takes a little extra concentration to realize that in this case I do want to get rid of the impact. On the other hand, I cannot find a similarly short alternative formulation. Maybe “rectify your impact” could work?
Agreed here. I think my website errs on the side of overconfident right now but I feel like that will help engagement for now. Maybe later I can try to surface more of the uncertainty.
This is a really good callout, especially because I’m not actually sure (and think it’s slightly unlikely) that these are actually the areas where you can do the most good. They’re just the areas that I think people hold a disproportionate amount of guilt towards.
Agreed with the sentiment and I also haven’t landed on wording I feel super confident about. I’m thinking about toying around with “harmful impact” to keep the branding around harm consistent. Not sure I agree that impact is just intended, in my mind it’s the result of what you do regardless of intention, but I’m not sure how many people share my view. I’ll keep workshopping this wording.