Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. What you said makes a lot of sense, but I just feel that the future is inherently unpredictable and I don’t think I can handle the risk factor so much.
+1 to Tobias. A complementary framing I’ve found useful is: would the universe be better if we spent $1 more on bednets or $1 more on improving the long-term future?
That’s a perfectly fine attitude to have! In that case I would likely advice donating to short-term charities rather than long-term ones which are more speculative. I don’t have as much experience with the former myself, and so have to defer to e.g. GiveWell’s recommended charities and the like.
Also, if you discover in a few years that you’re more or less risk-averse than you’d thought, you can still reconsider where to donate.
Finally, if you care about getting as much “bang for your buck” for your EA donations, keep a look out for ~yearly recurring donation matching events like this current one by Double Up Drive (though in that case it’s not entirely clear to me whether they match donations outside the US, and to which extent these donation matches can be considered counterfactual).
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. What you said makes a lot of sense, but I just feel that the future is inherently unpredictable and I don’t think I can handle the risk factor so much.
+1 to Tobias. A complementary framing I’ve found useful is: would the universe be better if we spent $1 more on bednets or $1 more on improving the long-term future?
That’s a perfectly fine attitude to have! In that case I would likely advice donating to short-term charities rather than long-term ones which are more speculative. I don’t have as much experience with the former myself, and so have to defer to e.g. GiveWell’s recommended charities and the like.
Also, if you discover in a few years that you’re more or less risk-averse than you’d thought, you can still reconsider where to donate.
Finally, if you care about getting as much “bang for your buck” for your EA donations, keep a look out for ~yearly recurring donation matching events like this current one by Double Up Drive (though in that case it’s not entirely clear to me whether they match donations outside the US, and to which extent these donation matches can be considered counterfactual).