I think you missed the best arguments for giving now vs giving later
If you give now, you get the compounding returns of impact, which I think are likely to be larger than the compounding returns of capital. If you donate money now to say, SWP, they might take that money and buy a stunner which will be used to stun shrimp before their death for, 50 years while your money waits in the stock market. Furthermore, you are building up the industries practices that will influence other decisionsand compound as well. What is that rate of return? I can’t give you an IRR but I think there’s good reason to think this is quite high. This same
Donating is a skill, one that needs to be developed over time. I agree that, in theory, one could make play money donations to improve over time. I just don’t think it works that way in practice. You need to make donations to get better at donating
I think you should expect a continued and growing influx of money into the EA movement. Even with the backsliding of FTX, the amount of money available to EA causes has still been growing year over year (I can’t remember where I saw this, but something like 60%/​year growth). This suggests that money that can be donated now is particularly valuable.
Money is but one resource for making impact. Unfortunately, we can’t simply go to the store with our dollars and buy impact at a fixed price, whenever we want. We have to pair it with other resources, ones that need to be spent across time. If the SWPs of the future are simply wired 25x the money in 50 years, they can’t simply turn that into impact for you. They need to have negotiations with companies, get buy-in, etc., which takes time and must be worked on continuously.
At what point do you stop compounding and donate? Why stop at death?
I think impact compounding is less reliable than stock market returns. The first stunner might be much more impactful (in shaping norms) than the 1000th. The impact of AI safety orgs remain to be seen. Meanwhile, that 6-7% in stock returns is somewhat consistent (though I think it’s closer to 5% in real terms. Also, I’m assuming you would donate the assets directly to avoid tax).
I’m also unsure of what skill can only be learned by the practice of donating as opposed to, for example, reading grant reports to understand funders’ reasoning. I suppose you learn more about yourself and how you think about giving, and you develop better habits, but that isn’t a skill.
However, I think now is generally better than later and agree that death is an arbitrary cash-in point.
I think you missed the best arguments for giving now vs giving later
If you give now, you get the compounding returns of impact, which I think are likely to be larger than the compounding returns of capital. If you donate money now to say, SWP, they might take that money and buy a stunner which will be used to stun shrimp before their death for, 50 years while your money waits in the stock market. Furthermore, you are building up the industries practices that will influence other decisionsand compound as well. What is that rate of return? I can’t give you an IRR but I think there’s good reason to think this is quite high. This same
Donating is a skill, one that needs to be developed over time. I agree that, in theory, one could make play money donations to improve over time. I just don’t think it works that way in practice. You need to make donations to get better at donating
I think you should expect a continued and growing influx of money into the EA movement. Even with the backsliding of FTX, the amount of money available to EA causes has still been growing year over year (I can’t remember where I saw this, but something like 60%/​year growth). This suggests that money that can be donated now is particularly valuable.
Money is but one resource for making impact. Unfortunately, we can’t simply go to the store with our dollars and buy impact at a fixed price, whenever we want. We have to pair it with other resources, ones that need to be spent across time. If the SWPs of the future are simply wired 25x the money in 50 years, they can’t simply turn that into impact for you. They need to have negotiations with companies, get buy-in, etc., which takes time and must be worked on continuously.
At what point do you stop compounding and donate? Why stop at death?
I think impact compounding is less reliable than stock market returns. The first stunner might be much more impactful (in shaping norms) than the 1000th. The impact of AI safety orgs remain to be seen. Meanwhile, that 6-7% in stock returns is somewhat consistent (though I think it’s closer to 5% in real terms. Also, I’m assuming you would donate the assets directly to avoid tax).
I’m also unsure of what skill can only be learned by the practice of donating as opposed to, for example, reading grant reports to understand funders’ reasoning. I suppose you learn more about yourself and how you think about giving, and you develop better habits, but that isn’t a skill.
However, I think now is generally better than later and agree that death is an arbitrary cash-in point.