[This comment is partly an update of my April 2020 post about my donation plans.]
Where Iām giving: This year, I plan to give 10% of my income (as per my Giving What We Can Pledge), and āinvest to giveā a larger portion.
I gave ~2% of my income to CEEALAR (formerly known as the EA Hotel). I currently plan to give another ~4% to GCRI and ~4% to ALLFED.
Iām open to feedback on these plans :)
Why mostly investing to give + giving 10%?
Ultimately, I plan to give away a very high proportion of the income I earned over my lifetime. But I find it very plausible (~30-80% likely) that marginal EA dollars would do more good if invested and given later (with interest) than if invested now. And āinvesting to giveā arguably maintains more option value than āgiving nowā, which is relevant because I expect thereāll be additional useful work on the āgiving now vs laterā question over the coming year, which can inform my decision then.
But I currently still plan to give 10% this year anyway. This is partly just because I want to, and partly for secondary benefitsāe.g., maybe many EAs āputting their money where their mouth isā helps with movement-building and with EAās external reputation. (That said, āinvesting to giveā via a donor-advised fund rather than regular investments may also capture those secondary benefits.)
Why CEEALAR (aka the EA Hotel)?
When I decided in April to give to CEEALAR, I had three different types of rationale.
First, I spent a month at CEEALAR in Jan/āFeb. I was a āgranteeā, so I didnāt have to pay for my stay. But I was able to pay, and it seems like probably a good norm for those who stay at CEEALAR and are able to pay to do so. And I enjoyed my time there, and it was useful to be able to stay there (in order to have my first month of work for a previous employer be in-person).
Second, my understanding was that CEEALAR had a fairly limited runway, such that, if theyād received little donations for something like 3-12 months, they might have had to make hard-to-reverse decisions thatād lastingly damage its ability to have an impact in future. I thought it was plausible that COVID could cause this. (I havenāt checked since then whether that seems to have been an accurate assessment and how much runway they now have.)
Third, I think the marginal impact of donations to CEEALAR in general is plausibly fairly high. This is mostly based on the sorts of arguments that have been discussed in the links given here; I donāt think I have much in the way of separate knowledge or insights to add, and Iām fairly uncertain about this (as I am about most important things!).
On the other hand, I donāt think Iāve read very many things from Baum or other GCRI people.
It also seems like they produce a lot of output. And I have no particular reason to believe the portions I havenāt read will be of notably lower quality than what I have read.
I seem to see Baumās name a lot in acknowledgements on other good work.
GCRI /ā Baum seem to do some work that helps build the longtermist research talent pipeline. For example, they ran a Advising and Collaboration Program in 2019. And a friend of mine reports having received a lot of helpful career advice and connections over the years from Baum (unrelated to that program).
Some potential arguments against giving to GCRI:
Iām not really sure what, specifically, theyād do with more funding. And maybe theyāre fairly well funded already?
I havenāt actually looked into their current runway or what they plan to do with more money.
It does seem like something like ALLFED should exist, and it seems quite surprising and strange that there had previously been so little other similar work. It seems like their niche really was very neglected, and I canāt see good reasons for that neglect.
It also seems that thereās substantial neglect even of the broader category of work ALLFED fits into, with that category roughly being āwork to make it less likely that a ādisasterā would turn into a civilizational collapse or GCR, or to improve our odds of recoveryā
That said, earlier this year, Open Phil granted $3,064,660 to a non-ALLFED research project on emergency food resilience, and wrote āOur interest in emergency foods first came from encountering the work of David Denkenberger and his colleagues at the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disastersā (source).
So arguably the neglectedness has now decreased.
But arguably that also suggests ALLFEDās work may have indirectly helped build the field.
ALLFED seem to have a lot of ideas for concrete activities they could do with more funding (see here)
That said, at first glance, some of these proposed activities strike me as perhaps less promising from a longtermist perspective than other work ALLFED has previously done (see also my comment here)
They seem strangely underfunded. E.g., I donāt believe the EA Long-Term Future Fund or Open Philanthropy have funded them, and SFF appears to have given them only 10,000USD. Coupled with the above, this suggests marginal donations may be quite valuable?
Iāve generally been impressed or happy with what Iāve seen of ALLFED /ā Dave Denkenbergerās work or reasoning (though I havenāt examined it in great detail). It also seems like they manage to get much of their work through peer-review. And at least according to ALLFEDās own post, they seem to have achieved various other successes this year. This all seems to suggest additional work from them may tend to be useful.
They run a large volunteer program, which seems to involve conscious efforts to benefit the volunteers and set them up for further impact later. I have a positive impression of this program (based on this post, talking to people involved in running it, and talking to a friend whoās in it), and think it might help improve the longtermist/āexistential risk research talent pipeline.
Their board of advisors includes people whose work/āreasoning has often seemed good to me.
Their cost-effectiveness estimates seem remarkably promising (see here and here).
But it does seem quite hard to believe that the cost-effectiveness is really that good. And many of the quantities are based on a survey of GCR researchers, with somewhat unclear methodology (e.g., how were the researchers chosen?)
I also havenāt analysed the models very closely
But, other than perhaps the reliance on that survey, I canāt obviously see major flaws, and havenāt seen comments that seem to convincingly point out major flaws. So maybe the estimates are in the right ballpark?
Some potential arguments against giving to ALLFED:
Their work seems less useful in relation to non-extinction existential risks (e.g., suffering risks) than some other existential risk work (e.g., many AI alignment efforts).
As noted above, some of their work or proposed work strikes me as not especially relevant to long-term trajectories of civilization (even if potentially very useful for humans in the near-term).
Perhaps them seemingly not having been funded by the EA Long-Term Future Fund, Open Phil, and various other funders is evidence that thereās some reason not to support them, which I just havenāt recognised?
Iād be interested to learn (a) whether ALLFED has reached out to the LTF and Open Phil, or been reached out to by them, and (b) if so, why ALLFED wasnāt funded by them (if indeed they havenāt been). But Iād also understand if that sort of info wouldnāt be made public.
Iād be interested in hearing from people in general who have actively decided not to fund ALLFED, and why they made that decision.
What might I do otherwise/ānext year?
I think itās pretty plausible that I should do one of the following things instead of my current plan:
Increase or decrease how much I āinvest to giveā relative to how much I give this year
Invest via a donor-advised fund rather than a regular index fund
Give to the EA Long-Term Future Fund or to a donor lottery rather than directly to specific charities
Give to a different specific charity
Note: I havenāt mentioned organisations which I work for or previously worked for, but you shouldnāt interpret that as a signal of my opinions about them. I think that there should probably be a weak norm against donating to oneās employersāeven if they seem like they could use marginal dollars wellāfor the reasons outlined here (e.g., donating to oneās employer could introduce biases and conflicts of interest).
Update: I ended up giving ~5% of my income from this year to GCRI, ~2.5% to ALLFED, ~2% to CEELAR, and small amounts to some other places.
Part of why I gave more to GCRI was simply that I offered donation swaps for my giving to both GCRI and ALLFED (since Iām in Australia), and the GCRI offer got a match first, and for the full amount.
Here are two additional potential reasons for giving to ALLFED, which didnāt seem important enough to include in my already-long parent comment:
Funding ALLFED to complete more of its proposed activities seems likely to provide substantial value of information regarding ALLFED, alternative foods, and the GCRs ALLFED focuses on.
But maybe this benefit is reduced now that Open Phil have made the above-mentioned grant.
ALLFED/āDenkenberger appear thoughtful and open to counterarguments and feedback.
And two additional potential reasons against, which again seemed insufficiently important to mention above:
Perhaps work on alternative foods could have a āmoral hazardā effect, increasing the likelihood of GCRs and agricultural shortfalls?
But a substantial effect of that nature seems quite unlikely to me. And ALLFED do already account for this possibility in their cost-effectiveness model.
ALLFED have gotten some coverage in media outlets (e.g., here, here, and here). I mostly see this as impressive and probably good, and my impression is that theyāre pretty thoughtful about this. But I guess there could be risks of low-fidelity communication and reputational harm (see also memetic downside risks).
In particular, some of their ideas could be mutated by the media into something like fringe survivalist/āprepper ideas. (Though maybe the coronavirus pandemic reduces this risk, as that fringe might seem a little less fringey nowā¦)
Thanks, MichaelA! On neglectedness, it is true that $3 million is very large in this space. However, the Open Phil funded group decided to propose to work on alternative foods that they already had expertise in. This includes cellulosic sugar, duckweed, forest products including inner bark, mushrooms, and sprouts. With the exception of cellulosic sugar, these alternative foods are higher cost than the ones that ALLFED is prioritizing. Low cost is important for feeding nearly everyone and maintaining stability of civilization. Therefore, we donāt believe that the highest priority sun-blocking solutions (cellulosic sugar, methane single cell protein, hydrogen single cell protein, cold tolerant crops, greenhouses, seaweed, and leaf protein concentrate) are significantly less neglected now. Furthermore, the Open Phil funded project is generally not working on interventions for losing electricity/āindustry, so that remains highly neglected.
Thatās useful info, and sounds to me like a fair point. Thanks :)
But then this strikes me as tying back into the idea that āPerhaps [ALLFED] seemingly not having been funded by the EA Long-Term Future Fund, Open Phil, and various other funders is evidence that thereās some reason not to support them, which I just havenāt recognised?ā
Here that question can take a more concrete form: If Open Phil chose to fund a group thatād work on alternative foods that ALLFED thinks will be less promising than the alternative foods ALLFED focuses on, but didnāt choose to fund ALLFED (at least so far), does that mean:
Open Phil are making a mistake?
ALLFED are wrong about which foods are most promising?
Perhaps because theyāre wrong about the relative costs, or because there are other considerations which outweigh the cost consideration?
ALLFED are right about which foods are most promising, but thereās some other overriding reason why the other team was a better donation opportunity?
E.g., perhaps at the present margin, whatās most needed is more academic credibility and that team could get it better than ALLFED could?
Thereās some alternative explanation such that Open Philās decisions are sound but also ALLFED is a good donation opportunity?
E.g., perhaps thereās some reason why Open Phil in particular shouldnāt fund ALLFED at this stage, even if it thought ALLFED was a good opportunity for other donors?
I donāt really know how likely each of those possible implications are (and thus I donāt have strong reason to believe 2 or 3 are the most likely implications). So this is just a confusing thing and a potential argument against donating to ALLFED, rather than a clearly decisive argument.
Iād be interested in your (or other peopleās) thoughts on thisābut would also understand if this is inappropriate to discuss publicly.
(Btw, I wouldnāt want readers to interpret this as a major critique or an expression of strong doubt. Iād expect to have at least some doubt or reservation with regards to basically any place I choose to donate to, work for, etc. - prioritisation is hard! - and Iām still planning to give ~4% of my income this year to ALLFED.)
[This comment is partly an update of my April 2020 post about my donation plans.]
Where Iām giving: This year, I plan to give 10% of my income (as per my Giving What We Can Pledge), and āinvest to giveā a larger portion.
I gave ~2% of my income to CEEALAR (formerly known as the EA Hotel). I currently plan to give another ~4% to GCRI and ~4% to ALLFED.
Iām open to feedback on these plans :)
Why mostly investing to give + giving 10%?
Ultimately, I plan to give away a very high proportion of the income I earned over my lifetime. But I find it very plausible (~30-80% likely) that marginal EA dollars would do more good if invested and given later (with interest) than if invested now. And āinvesting to giveā arguably maintains more option value than āgiving nowā, which is relevant because I expect thereāll be additional useful work on the āgiving now vs laterā question over the coming year, which can inform my decision then.
But this is a complicated matter; see this post, this comment, and this post for more details and caveats.
But I currently still plan to give 10% this year anyway. This is partly just because I want to, and partly for secondary benefitsāe.g., maybe many EAs āputting their money where their mouth isā helps with movement-building and with EAās external reputation. (That said, āinvesting to giveā via a donor-advised fund rather than regular investments may also capture those secondary benefits.)
Why CEEALAR (aka the EA Hotel)?
When I decided in April to give to CEEALAR, I had three different types of rationale.
First, I spent a month at CEEALAR in Jan/āFeb. I was a āgranteeā, so I didnāt have to pay for my stay. But I was able to pay, and it seems like probably a good norm for those who stay at CEEALAR and are able to pay to do so. And I enjoyed my time there, and it was useful to be able to stay there (in order to have my first month of work for a previous employer be in-person).
Second, my understanding was that CEEALAR had a fairly limited runway, such that, if theyād received little donations for something like 3-12 months, they might have had to make hard-to-reverse decisions thatād lastingly damage its ability to have an impact in future. I thought it was plausible that COVID could cause this. (I havenāt checked since then whether that seems to have been an accurate assessment and how much runway they now have.)
Third, I think the marginal impact of donations to CEEALAR in general is plausibly fairly high. This is mostly based on the sorts of arguments that have been discussed in the links given here; I donāt think I have much in the way of separate knowledge or insights to add, and Iām fairly uncertain about this (as I am about most important things!).
Why GCRI?
See also Summary of 2020-2021 GCRI Accomplishments, Plans, and Fundraising
Some potential arguments for giving to GCRI:
I think Iāve been impressed/āvery impressed with all of the work Iāve seen from Seth Baum (usually with coauthors).
In particular, I thought Long-Term Trajectories of Human Civilization and Quantifying the Probability of Existential Catastrophe: A Reply to Beard et al. Seth D. Baum Global Catastrophic Risk Institute were excellent, and would be keen to see more things like that.
On the other hand, I donāt think Iāve read very many things from Baum or other GCRI people.
It also seems like they produce a lot of output. And I have no particular reason to believe the portions I havenāt read will be of notably lower quality than what I have read.
I seem to see Baumās name a lot in acknowledgements on other good work.
GCRI /ā Baum seem to do some work that helps build the longtermist research talent pipeline. For example, they ran a Advising and Collaboration Program in 2019. And a friend of mine reports having received a lot of helpful career advice and connections over the years from Baum (unrelated to that program).
Some potential arguments against giving to GCRI:
Iām not really sure what, specifically, theyād do with more funding. And maybe theyāre fairly well funded already?
I havenāt actually looked into their current runway or what they plan to do with more money.
Why ALLFED?
See also ALLFED 2020 Highlights
Some potential arguments for giving to ALLFED:
It does seem like something like ALLFED should exist, and it seems quite surprising and strange that there had previously been so little other similar work. It seems like their niche really was very neglected, and I canāt see good reasons for that neglect.
It also seems that thereās substantial neglect even of the broader category of work ALLFED fits into, with that category roughly being āwork to make it less likely that a ādisasterā would turn into a civilizational collapse or GCR, or to improve our odds of recoveryā
That said, earlier this year, Open Phil granted $3,064,660 to a non-ALLFED research project on emergency food resilience, and wrote āOur interest in emergency foods first came from encountering the work of David Denkenberger and his colleagues at the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disastersā (source).
So arguably the neglectedness has now decreased.
But arguably that also suggests ALLFEDās work may have indirectly helped build the field.
ALLFED seem to have a lot of ideas for concrete activities they could do with more funding (see here)
That said, at first glance, some of these proposed activities strike me as perhaps less promising from a longtermist perspective than other work ALLFED has previously done (see also my comment here)
They seem strangely underfunded. E.g., I donāt believe the EA Long-Term Future Fund or Open Philanthropy have funded them, and SFF appears to have given them only 10,000USD. Coupled with the above, this suggests marginal donations may be quite valuable?
Iāve generally been impressed or happy with what Iāve seen of ALLFED /ā Dave Denkenbergerās work or reasoning (though I havenāt examined it in great detail). It also seems like they manage to get much of their work through peer-review. And at least according to ALLFEDās own post, they seem to have achieved various other successes this year. This all seems to suggest additional work from them may tend to be useful.
They run a large volunteer program, which seems to involve conscious efforts to benefit the volunteers and set them up for further impact later. I have a positive impression of this program (based on this post, talking to people involved in running it, and talking to a friend whoās in it), and think it might help improve the longtermist/āexistential risk research talent pipeline.
Their board of advisors includes people whose work/āreasoning has often seemed good to me.
Their cost-effectiveness estimates seem remarkably promising (see here and here).
But it does seem quite hard to believe that the cost-effectiveness is really that good. And many of the quantities are based on a survey of GCR researchers, with somewhat unclear methodology (e.g., how were the researchers chosen?)
I also havenāt analysed the models very closely
But, other than perhaps the reliance on that survey, I canāt obviously see major flaws, and havenāt seen comments that seem to convincingly point out major flaws. So maybe the estimates are in the right ballpark?
Some potential arguments against giving to ALLFED:
Their work seems less useful in relation to non-extinction existential risks (e.g., suffering risks) than some other existential risk work (e.g., many AI alignment efforts).
See here (not about ALLFED)
Somewhat relevant points are made in Which world gets saved? (not about ALLFED)
As noted above, some of their work or proposed work strikes me as not especially relevant to long-term trajectories of civilization (even if potentially very useful for humans in the near-term).
Perhaps them seemingly not having been funded by the EA Long-Term Future Fund, Open Phil, and various other funders is evidence that thereās some reason not to support them, which I just havenāt recognised?
Iād be interested to learn (a) whether ALLFED has reached out to the LTF and Open Phil, or been reached out to by them, and (b) if so, why ALLFED wasnāt funded by them (if indeed they havenāt been). But Iād also understand if that sort of info wouldnāt be made public.
Iād be interested in hearing from people in general who have actively decided not to fund ALLFED, and why they made that decision.
What might I do otherwise/ānext year?
I think itās pretty plausible that I should do one of the following things instead of my current plan:
Increase or decrease how much I āinvest to giveā relative to how much I give this year
Invest via a donor-advised fund rather than a regular index fund
Give to the EA Long-Term Future Fund or to a donor lottery rather than directly to specific charities
Give to a different specific charity
Note: I havenāt mentioned organisations which I work for or previously worked for, but you shouldnāt interpret that as a signal of my opinions about them. I think that there should probably be a weak norm against donating to oneās employersāeven if they seem like they could use marginal dollars wellāfor the reasons outlined here (e.g., donating to oneās employer could introduce biases and conflicts of interest).
Update: I ended up giving ~5% of my income from this year to GCRI, ~2.5% to ALLFED, ~2% to CEELAR, and small amounts to some other places.
Part of why I gave more to GCRI was simply that I offered donation swaps for my giving to both GCRI and ALLFED (since Iām in Australia), and the GCRI offer got a match first, and for the full amount.
Here are two additional potential reasons for giving to ALLFED, which didnāt seem important enough to include in my already-long parent comment:
Funding ALLFED to complete more of its proposed activities seems likely to provide substantial value of information regarding ALLFED, alternative foods, and the GCRs ALLFED focuses on.
But maybe this benefit is reduced now that Open Phil have made the above-mentioned grant.
ALLFED/āDenkenberger appear thoughtful and open to counterarguments and feedback.
E.g., Denkenbergerās statement here.
And two additional potential reasons against, which again seemed insufficiently important to mention above:
Perhaps work on alternative foods could have a āmoral hazardā effect, increasing the likelihood of GCRs and agricultural shortfalls?
But a substantial effect of that nature seems quite unlikely to me. And ALLFED do already account for this possibility in their cost-effectiveness model.
ALLFED have gotten some coverage in media outlets (e.g., here, here, and here). I mostly see this as impressive and probably good, and my impression is that theyāre pretty thoughtful about this. But I guess there could be risks of low-fidelity communication and reputational harm (see also memetic downside risks).
In particular, some of their ideas could be mutated by the media into something like fringe survivalist/āprepper ideas. (Though maybe the coronavirus pandemic reduces this risk, as that fringe might seem a little less fringey nowā¦)
Thanks, MichaelA! On neglectedness, it is true that $3 million is very large in this space. However, the Open Phil funded group decided to propose to work on alternative foods that they already had expertise in. This includes cellulosic sugar, duckweed, forest products including inner bark, mushrooms, and sprouts. With the exception of cellulosic sugar, these alternative foods are higher cost than the ones that ALLFED is prioritizing. Low cost is important for feeding nearly everyone and maintaining stability of civilization. Therefore, we donāt believe that the highest priority sun-blocking solutions (cellulosic sugar, methane single cell protein, hydrogen single cell protein, cold tolerant crops, greenhouses, seaweed, and leaf protein concentrate) are significantly less neglected now. Furthermore, the Open Phil funded project is generally not working on interventions for losing electricity/āindustry, so that remains highly neglected.
Thatās useful info, and sounds to me like a fair point. Thanks :)
But then this strikes me as tying back into the idea that āPerhaps [ALLFED] seemingly not having been funded by the EA Long-Term Future Fund, Open Phil, and various other funders is evidence that thereās some reason not to support them, which I just havenāt recognised?ā
Here that question can take a more concrete form: If Open Phil chose to fund a group thatād work on alternative foods that ALLFED thinks will be less promising than the alternative foods ALLFED focuses on, but didnāt choose to fund ALLFED (at least so far), does that mean:
Open Phil are making a mistake?
ALLFED are wrong about which foods are most promising?
Perhaps because theyāre wrong about the relative costs, or because there are other considerations which outweigh the cost consideration?
ALLFED are right about which foods are most promising, but thereās some other overriding reason why the other team was a better donation opportunity?
E.g., perhaps at the present margin, whatās most needed is more academic credibility and that team could get it better than ALLFED could?
Thereās some alternative explanation such that Open Philās decisions are sound but also ALLFED is a good donation opportunity?
E.g., perhaps thereās some reason why Open Phil in particular shouldnāt fund ALLFED at this stage, even if it thought ALLFED was a good opportunity for other donors?
I donāt really know how likely each of those possible implications are (and thus I donāt have strong reason to believe 2 or 3 are the most likely implications). So this is just a confusing thing and a potential argument against donating to ALLFED, rather than a clearly decisive argument.
Iād be interested in your (or other peopleās) thoughts on thisābut would also understand if this is inappropriate to discuss publicly.
(Btw, I wouldnāt want readers to interpret this as a major critique or an expression of strong doubt. Iād expect to have at least some doubt or reservation with regards to basically any place I choose to donate to, work for, etc. - prioritisation is hard! - and Iām still planning to give ~4% of my income this year to ALLFED.)