I think you’ve hit on one of the challenging bits here—what the 10% represents is not particularly well defined, certainly not to someone just encountering EA ideas. We can approximate the intent with metaphors or phrases like “community standard,” “some sort of moral claim,” “green tether,” etc. But if we’re assuming a target audience who hasn’t “encountered this complex bundle of ideas and aren’t going to give us a huge amount of time before writing us off,” then we can’t assume any kind of nuanced understanding of what the pledge represents.
If I understand the perceived problem you’re trying to fix correctly, the theory is that at least a meaningful fraction of the target audience is going to misinterpret the community standard as somehow precluding or discouraging less-effective donations out of the 90% -- even though this is a pretty unreasonable interpretation to start with, [1] and can be disclaimed pretty early in a presentation.
To me, a more plausible inference would be to read the standard as embodying a claim that following the standard is morally obligatory—or at least significantly morally superior—to not following it, at least for a median-income adult in a developed country with no special circumstances.[2] And if the listener comes in with that inference, the 2⁄8 standard seems much harder to justify as a philosophical matter than the 10% standard. And that seems like a significant downside to me, given that EA has had more success with philosophically-minded people.
In the end, some of what we’re discussing touches on empirical questions that Giving What We Can might find worth evaluating. When presented with brief information about the GWWC pledge, what beliefs about the community standard do people endorse? How do various ways of explaining the community standard effect the listener’s understanding? That’s not about trying to manipulate people; it is seeing if the way things are being communicated faithfully conveys the community’s beliefs. If we are unsuccessful in tweaking the presentation to dispel the incorrect idea that less-effective donations are discouraged through messaging tweaks, how do more substantial reforms (like a 2⁄8 standard) perform in accuracy?
The community standard doesn’t say anything about what to do with the other 90%, and a standard that was totally fine with the pledger buying Taylor Swift tickets but objected to donating the same money to a local animal shelter instead would be . . . bizarre.
I think most people would intuitively grasp the implications of partial compliance: the median-income adult meeting 80% of the standard is acting in a morally superior to an adult in the same circumstances meeting 60% of it, and so on.
I think you’ve hit on one of the challenging bits here—what the 10% represents is not particularly well defined, certainly not to someone just encountering EA ideas. We can approximate the intent with metaphors or phrases like “community standard,” “some sort of moral claim,” “green tether,” etc. But if we’re assuming a target audience who hasn’t “encountered this complex bundle of ideas and aren’t going to give us a huge amount of time before writing us off,” then we can’t assume any kind of nuanced understanding of what the pledge represents.
If I understand the perceived problem you’re trying to fix correctly, the theory is that at least a meaningful fraction of the target audience is going to misinterpret the community standard as somehow precluding or discouraging less-effective donations out of the 90% -- even though this is a pretty unreasonable interpretation to start with, [1] and can be disclaimed pretty early in a presentation.
To me, a more plausible inference would be to read the standard as embodying a claim that following the standard is morally obligatory—or at least significantly morally superior—to not following it, at least for a median-income adult in a developed country with no special circumstances.[2] And if the listener comes in with that inference, the 2⁄8 standard seems much harder to justify as a philosophical matter than the 10% standard. And that seems like a significant downside to me, given that EA has had more success with philosophically-minded people.
In the end, some of what we’re discussing touches on empirical questions that Giving What We Can might find worth evaluating. When presented with brief information about the GWWC pledge, what beliefs about the community standard do people endorse? How do various ways of explaining the community standard effect the listener’s understanding? That’s not about trying to manipulate people; it is seeing if the way things are being communicated faithfully conveys the community’s beliefs. If we are unsuccessful in tweaking the presentation to dispel the incorrect idea that less-effective donations are discouraged through messaging tweaks, how do more substantial reforms (like a 2⁄8 standard) perform in accuracy?
The community standard doesn’t say anything about what to do with the other 90%, and a standard that was totally fine with the pledger buying Taylor Swift tickets but objected to donating the same money to a local animal shelter instead would be . . . bizarre.
I think most people would intuitively grasp the implications of partial compliance: the median-income adult meeting 80% of the standard is acting in a morally superior to an adult in the same circumstances meeting 60% of it, and so on.