I respect cluelessness arguments enough that Iâve removed âstronglyâ from âstrongly believeâ in my response; I was just in an enthusiastic mood.
My giving to charities focused on short-term impact (and GiveWell in particular) is motivated by a few things:
I believe that my work currently generates much more value for CEA than the amount I donate to other charities, which means that almost all of my impact is likely of a meta/âlongtermist variety. But I am morally uncertain, and place enough credence on moral theories emphasizing short-term value that I want at least a fraction of my work to impact people who are alive today.
Around the time I joined CEA, I had been rapidly becoming more focused on the long term; had I taken some other non-EA job, I think that all or almost all of my donations would be going to meta causes as a way of getting long-term leverage. Instead, I get to hedge a bit with my donations.
Personal/âemotional factors. I sleep a bit better at night knowing that Iâve used my unusually lucky circumstances to provide something good for people who have been unusually unlucky. (In theory, I should also sleep worse because Iâve deprived longtermist projects of funding, but that isnât how my brain works for some reason.)
Support for an especially well-run organization. I think that the quality of work done at GiveWell (from their charity reports and shared spreadsheets to their Mistakes page) puts them in a class of their own within EA, and I think that having orgs like this is a good thing for EA as a whole; to paraphrase Thomas Callaghan, âquality has a quality all its own.â To the extent that GiveWell is a flagship org within the broader EA movement, one which will be the first introduction to EA for many people, I think itâs good on a meta level for them to have more resources even if the marginal impact of those resources is lower than it might be for newer/âsmaller orgs.
I should clarify that my GiveWell donation will be going towards their operations, not the Maximum Impact Fund. If this helps them e.g. advertise more widely, I think thatâs a solid meta investment.
This view is informed largely by my own experience; I would have taken much longer to enter EA (if Iâd entered at all) had GiveWell not been around to show me that âyes, this movement can produce high-quality research in a way you can actually verify, and itâs obvious that our charities crush much of the competition dollar-for-dollar.â
I should also clarify that, by âexcellentâ, I donât so much mean âextremely high impactâ as âhigh standard of quality in how the organization is runâ.
Of course, that makes me Charity Navigator, so perhaps I should choose a different word.
Anyway, Iâve more than filled my âshort-term bucketâ for this year and next; my future winnings will probably go to smaller projects (if I have time to evaluate them) or other potential âflagshipâ orgs like 80,000 Hoursâwhich now seems to be the most common entry point into EA for people, serving the role that GiveWell did back when I got into EA. But this will, as before, depend on how well I think I can pitch them to a non-EA audience.
I respect cluelessness arguments enough that Iâve removed âstronglyâ from âstrongly believeâ in my response; I was just in an enthusiastic mood.
My giving to charities focused on short-term impact (and GiveWell in particular) is motivated by a few things:
I believe that my work currently generates much more value for CEA than the amount I donate to other charities, which means that almost all of my impact is likely of a meta/âlongtermist variety. But I am morally uncertain, and place enough credence on moral theories emphasizing short-term value that I want at least a fraction of my work to impact people who are alive today.
Around the time I joined CEA, I had been rapidly becoming more focused on the long term; had I taken some other non-EA job, I think that all or almost all of my donations would be going to meta causes as a way of getting long-term leverage. Instead, I get to hedge a bit with my donations.
Personal/âemotional factors. I sleep a bit better at night knowing that Iâve used my unusually lucky circumstances to provide something good for people who have been unusually unlucky. (In theory, I should also sleep worse because Iâve deprived longtermist projects of funding, but that isnât how my brain works for some reason.)
Support for an especially well-run organization. I think that the quality of work done at GiveWell (from their charity reports and shared spreadsheets to their Mistakes page) puts them in a class of their own within EA, and I think that having orgs like this is a good thing for EA as a whole; to paraphrase Thomas Callaghan, âquality has a quality all its own.â To the extent that GiveWell is a flagship org within the broader EA movement, one which will be the first introduction to EA for many people, I think itâs good on a meta level for them to have more resources even if the marginal impact of those resources is lower than it might be for newer/âsmaller orgs.
I should clarify that my GiveWell donation will be going towards their operations, not the Maximum Impact Fund. If this helps them e.g. advertise more widely, I think thatâs a solid meta investment.
This view is informed largely by my own experience; I would have taken much longer to enter EA (if Iâd entered at all) had GiveWell not been around to show me that âyes, this movement can produce high-quality research in a way you can actually verify, and itâs obvious that our charities crush much of the competition dollar-for-dollar.â
I should also clarify that, by âexcellentâ, I donât so much mean âextremely high impactâ as âhigh standard of quality in how the organization is runâ.
Of course, that makes me Charity Navigator, so perhaps I should choose a different word.
Anyway, Iâve more than filled my âshort-term bucketâ for this year and next; my future winnings will probably go to smaller projects (if I have time to evaluate them) or other potential âflagshipâ orgs like 80,000 Hoursâwhich now seems to be the most common entry point into EA for people, serving the role that GiveWell did back when I got into EA. But this will, as before, depend on how well I think I can pitch them to a non-EA audience.