I have largely similar thoughts, but one disagreement:
“On the first level, you could say that money is really valuable…Against that you could argue that, well, we have an insane amount of money for the size of the movement” [cant see block quote option]
Yes, and I’d argue this (I.e. the interaction between these two levels) is where marginal changes and critiques should be directed because it’s where in practice reasons-responsive decisions about gazzilions of dollars are made.
That is, “EA” (really, a number of different people to different degrees, some of whom have >$10^9) have decided not to fully fund [both of our top charities] this coming year for some set of reasons having to do with cause prioritization. At the top, “EA” can decide that the next marginal dollar should go to GiveWell instead of wherever it’s implicitly going now. Unless I’m missing something it really is a $1-$1 tradeoff
But afaik saving $100 on total top-down EA Global-related spending doesn’t result in $100 going to GiveWell. I don’t understand the funding landscape/mechanisms well enough to know where it goes, but I’d guess it essentially winds up in slightly more slack in the system at the top, which might result in, i don’t know, $5 (?) going to GiveWell, and $95 (??) coming back down in the form of nicer food at some retreat in 2024 (or something, I really don’t know)
If I have this mostly right, I think the main implication is that any argument against waste should mostly be an argument about where money gets directed some number of layers up.
Very good point. Considering last dollar spent or marginal dollar spent lowers these numbers by quite a lot—though I think even an order of magnitude still gives you quite high numbers
I have largely similar thoughts, but one disagreement:
“On the first level, you could say that money is really valuable…Against that you could argue that, well, we have an insane amount of money for the size of the movement” [cant see block quote option]
Yes, and I’d argue this (I.e. the interaction between these two levels) is where marginal changes and critiques should be directed because it’s where in practice reasons-responsive decisions about gazzilions of dollars are made.
That is, “EA” (really, a number of different people to different degrees, some of whom have >$10^9) have decided not to fully fund [both of our top charities] this coming year for some set of reasons having to do with cause prioritization. At the top, “EA” can decide that the next marginal dollar should go to GiveWell instead of wherever it’s implicitly going now. Unless I’m missing something it really is a $1-$1 tradeoff
But afaik saving $100 on total top-down EA Global-related spending doesn’t result in $100 going to GiveWell. I don’t understand the funding landscape/mechanisms well enough to know where it goes, but I’d guess it essentially winds up in slightly more slack in the system at the top, which might result in, i don’t know, $5 (?) going to GiveWell, and $95 (??) coming back down in the form of nicer food at some retreat in 2024 (or something, I really don’t know)
If I have this mostly right, I think the main implication is that any argument against waste should mostly be an argument about where money gets directed some number of layers up.
As with Jordan, correct me if/where I’m wrong!
Very good point. Considering last dollar spent or marginal dollar spent lowers these numbers by quite a lot—though I think even an order of magnitude still gives you quite high numbers