Thanks for this post. Wondering if ‘earning to give’ advice should be updated to more clearly argue for going for (the most) ethical ways to earn instead of just the most ethical ways to give. To me it seems like a lot of the fastest ways to make money can be unethical (which should bother us as EA’s more than usual) or outright fraudulent, so arguing for making as much money as possible can incentivize behaviour like this (in that sense I do think EA bears some responsibility for Sam’s behaviour). I love giving what you earn, just not trying to maximize what you earn unless it is done by doing good.
Thanks for the responses. I was not aware of the article on harmful careers and think it is very good (I recognize that many of these issues are hard, so even tough I might be a bit more skeptical about some of these high paying jobs and examples I could easily be wrong). Thanks for bringing it to my attention, it shows that some of my criticism was a bit misguided.
Thanks for this post. Wondering if ‘earning to give’ advice should be updated to more clearly argue for going for (the most) ethical ways to earn instead of just the most ethical ways to give. To me it seems like a lot of the fastest ways to make money can be unethical (which should bother us as EA’s more than usual) or outright fraudulent, so arguing for making as much money as possible can incentivize behaviour like this (in that sense I do think EA bears some responsibility for Sam’s behaviour). I love giving what you earn, just not trying to maximize what you earn unless it is done by doing good.
Surely it’s at least implied that people shouldn’t earn to give through fraud/criminal behaviour?
It’s more than implied, e.g. https://80000hours.org/articles/harmful-career/
Edit: removed a quote to encourage people to skim the full article
Thanks for the responses. I was not aware of the article on harmful careers and think it is very good (I recognize that many of these issues are hard, so even tough I might be a bit more skeptical about some of these high paying jobs and examples I could easily be wrong). Thanks for bringing it to my attention, it shows that some of my criticism was a bit misguided.
Maybe ‘vast majority of cases’ is too ambiguous or allows too much wiggle room for SBF-alikes.
Good point, I removed the quote. The article is pretty nuanced and I think I wasn’t making it justice by quoting just two sentences.
I wish you kept the quote. The effect is that I didn’t read the quote and did not read the article.