Hi, Folks! I’m Wahhab Baldwin, a 78-year-old retired software developer and manager and minister. I have donated at least 10% of my income for decades, strongly favoring effectiveness. I ran into EA through the Podcast interview with William MacAskill on “People I (Mostly) Admire.”
I strongly affirm much of EA, but I disagree with certain elements, and hope I am able to have some enlightening conversations here. I hope tomorrow to write a post on longtermism. As a preview, I will argue that we must discount a future good compared to a present good. It is better to save a life this year than to save a life next year. If we discount at the conservative rate of 2% per year, then a life 1000 years from now should be valued at 1⁄600,000,000 of a life today, meaning (imo) that we should really focus only on the next century. But before you argue, read my more detailed post! I look forward to our conversation. (Now at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xvsmRLS998PpHffHE/concerns-with-longtermism).
I like to link to stuff others pointed out so it is easier to get to the content. Here is a link to the podcast episode of People I (Mostly) Admire with William MacAskill:
Episode 86, A Million-Year View on Morality (52:31) ”Philosopher Will MacAskill thinks about how to do as much good as possible. But that’s really hard, especially when you’re worried about humans who won’t be born for many generations.” https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-million-year-view-on-morality/
This idea is known in the community but I am looking forward for your post and the discussion beneath it. :)
Also big kudos to donating based on effectiveness over the past decades (and donating at all). I think this could also deserve a post, on your history of figuring out which donation is effective and how you choose between them.
Hi, Folks! I’m Wahhab Baldwin, a 78-year-old retired software developer and manager and minister. I have donated at least 10% of my income for decades, strongly favoring effectiveness. I ran into EA through the Podcast interview with William MacAskill on “People I (Mostly) Admire.”
I strongly affirm much of EA, but I disagree with certain elements, and hope I am able to have some enlightening conversations here. I hope tomorrow to write a post on longtermism. As a preview, I will argue that we must discount a future good compared to a present good. It is better to save a life this year than to save a life next year. If we discount at the conservative rate of 2% per year, then a life 1000 years from now should be valued at 1⁄600,000,000 of a life today, meaning (imo) that we should really focus only on the next century. But before you argue, read my more detailed post! I look forward to our conversation. (Now at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xvsmRLS998PpHffHE/concerns-with-longtermism).
Welcome to the EA forum Mr. Baldwin.
I like to link to stuff others pointed out so it is easier to get to the content. Here is a link to the podcast episode of People I (Mostly) Admire with William MacAskill:
Episode 86, A Million-Year View on Morality (52:31)
”Philosopher Will MacAskill thinks about how to do as much good as possible. But that’s really hard, especially when you’re worried about humans who won’t be born for many generations.”
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-million-year-view-on-morality/
“If we discount at the conservative rate of 2% per year [...]”.
This argument strikes me as one from Richard A. Posner presented in his book: Catastrophe: Risk and Response (https://www.amazon.com/Catastrophe-Risk-Response-Richard-Posner/dp/0195306473/).
This idea is known in the community but I am looking forward for your post and the discussion beneath it. :)
Also big kudos to donating based on effectiveness over the past decades (and donating at all). I think this could also deserve a post, on your history of figuring out which donation is effective and how you choose between them.
I look forward to reading your post!