I think he donated £25 for that year, but I’m not sure how he picked that number and I have to admit I haven’t been very systematic since then. I think the following year I donated £100 to ACE, then missed a year, then for 2 years did 10% of my annual donations to the animal welfare EA fund (I’m a member of Giving What We Can, so that’s 1% of my salary).
I’m not sure I have a reasoned case for donating to animal welfare charities as offsets, since the animals that are helped are different to those I harm and consequentially it would surely be best to make all my donations to the organisation I think will help sentient beings most. But it seems pretty good to remember that I think it’s important and impactful to help various groups to whom I don’t give the lions share of my donations, and it seems plausibly good to show to others that I care about them by doing something concrete. With those considerations in mind it simply seems important for the donation to be an amount that feels non-negligible to me and others, rather than an amount exactly equal to the harm I’m doing. (That may simply be a rationalisation though, because I would rather not know exactly how much harm I’m causing and it would be a hassle to figure it out.)
I’m not convinced by the idea of doing something harmful “on purpose” and then compensating for it to be able to continue the harmful behaviour without feeling guilty. Additionally, as people who have been in the EA community for a long time, I think there is a chance that we will be seen as representatives of the movement, and this gives us an additional responsibility because others might take our actions as an example and behave in a similar way (e.g. in this case, “ah! it’s ok to eat meat if I donate £25-100 a year to ACE). If I imagined that it was me, and someone was doing something harmful to me during the year and helping me to compensate for the harm so that they wouldn’t feel too bad about harming me again next year—I would find that disturbing.
This being said, I agree with the other parts of your previous comment, e.g. on ‘direct work’ and ‘working at EA orgs’; and that “people greatly differ in how much of a sacrifice specific things are to them, and how comfortable they are with different levels of sacrifice.” Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Michelle!
I think he donated £25 for that year, but I’m not sure how he picked that number and I have to admit I haven’t been very systematic since then. I think the following year I donated £100 to ACE, then missed a year, then for 2 years did 10% of my annual donations to the animal welfare EA fund (I’m a member of Giving What We Can, so that’s 1% of my salary).
I’m not sure I have a reasoned case for donating to animal welfare charities as offsets, since the animals that are helped are different to those I harm and consequentially it would surely be best to make all my donations to the organisation I think will help sentient beings most. But it seems pretty good to remember that I think it’s important and impactful to help various groups to whom I don’t give the lions share of my donations, and it seems plausibly good to show to others that I care about them by doing something concrete. With those considerations in mind it simply seems important for the donation to be an amount that feels non-negligible to me and others, rather than an amount exactly equal to the harm I’m doing. (That may simply be a rationalisation though, because I would rather not know exactly how much harm I’m causing and it would be a hassle to figure it out.)
I’m not convinced by the idea of doing something harmful “on purpose” and then compensating for it to be able to continue the harmful behaviour without feeling guilty. Additionally, as people who have been in the EA community for a long time, I think there is a chance that we will be seen as representatives of the movement, and this gives us an additional responsibility because others might take our actions as an example and behave in a similar way (e.g. in this case, “ah! it’s ok to eat meat if I donate £25-100 a year to ACE).
If I imagined that it was me, and someone was doing something harmful to me during the year and helping me to compensate for the harm so that they wouldn’t feel too bad about harming me again next year—I would find that disturbing.
This being said, I agree with the other parts of your previous comment, e.g. on ‘direct work’ and ‘working at EA orgs’; and that “people greatly differ in how much of a sacrifice specific things are to them, and how comfortable they are with different levels of sacrifice.” Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Michelle!