The positive impact is normalisation of altruism, which leads to others being more altruistic in the way they think/behave/vote. The size of this effect is very hard to measure—like any social movement—but because it could be large we should be careful about throwing the “cultural change” aspect of the movement out (which I think is what’s happening with the shift in focus to impactful careers).
Personal anecdote: I’m a doctor in Australia. Doctors are paid very well and have huge potential to fund good causes and influence positive change. Despite this, I witness a lot of doctors getting caught up in jealously comparing themselves to other doctors and their lifestyles. Lavish lifestyle is the norm and I’ve seen this lead to doctors:
Advocating for redirecting public funding to increasing their own wages
Taking the first class flight to that conference in Berlin because their colleagues do
Justifying buying a new Mini because the gastroenterologist drives a Morgan
Avoiding giving to charity
These represent a huge pool of resources that aren’t being used because it’s not the norm, and that’s just within medicine.
Norms are hard to change but a coordinated movement of people giving might have a significant effect. It was certainly other people giving that inspired me to start giving.
I think we should at least consider that we might be losing effectiveness by giving too much space to 80,000 Hours-style impactful careers talk and pushing giving to the side. I haven’t seen much consideration of this on the forum
The positive impact is normalisation of altruism, which leads to others being more altruistic in the way they think/behave/vote. The size of this effect is very hard to measure—like any social movement—but because it could be large we should be careful about throwing the “cultural change” aspect of the movement out (which I think is what’s happening with the shift in focus to impactful careers).
Personal anecdote: I’m a doctor in Australia. Doctors are paid very well and have huge potential to fund good causes and influence positive change. Despite this, I witness a lot of doctors getting caught up in jealously comparing themselves to other doctors and their lifestyles. Lavish lifestyle is the norm and I’ve seen this lead to doctors:
Advocating for redirecting public funding to increasing their own wages
Taking the first class flight to that conference in Berlin because their colleagues do
Justifying buying a new Mini because the gastroenterologist drives a Morgan
Avoiding giving to charity
These represent a huge pool of resources that aren’t being used because it’s not the norm, and that’s just within medicine.
Norms are hard to change but a coordinated movement of people giving might have a significant effect. It was certainly other people giving that inspired me to start giving.
I think we should at least consider that we might be losing effectiveness by giving too much space to 80,000 Hours-style impactful careers talk and pushing giving to the side. I haven’t seen much consideration of this on the forum