I think this overstates the case. Diminishing returns to expenditures in a particular time favor a nonzero disbursement rate (e.g. with logarithmic returns to spending at a given time 10x HoH levels would drive a 10x expenditure for a given period)
Sorry, I wasn’t meaning we should be entirely punting to the future, and in case it’s not clear from my post my actual all-things-considered views is that longtermist EAs should be endorsing a mixed strategy of some significant proportion of effort spent on near-term longtermist activities and some proportion of effort spent on long-term longtermist activities.
I do agree that, at the moment, EA is mainly investing (e.g. because of Open Phil and because of human capital and because much actual expenditure is field-building-y, as you say). But it seems like at the moment that’s primarily because of management constraints and weirdness of borrowing-to-give (etc), rather than a principled plan to spread giving out over some (possibly very long) time period. Certainly the vibe in the air is ‘expenditure (of money or labour) now is super important, we should really be focusing on that’.
(I also don’t think that diminishing returns is entirely true: there are fixed costs and economies of scale when trying to do most things in the world, so I expect s-curves in general. If so, that would favour a lumpier disbursement schedule.)
I do agree that, at the moment, EA is mainly investing (e.g. because of Open Phil and because of human capital and because much actual expenditure is field-building-y, as you say). But it seems like at the moment that’s primarily because of management constraints and weirdness of borrowing-to-give (etc), rather than a principled plan to spread giving out over some (possibly very long) time period.
I agree that many small donors do not have a principled plan and are trying to shift the overall portfolio towards more donation soon (which can have the effect of 100% now donation for an individual who is small relative to the overall portfolio).
However, I think that institutionally there are in fact mechanisms to regulate expenditures:
Evaluations of investments in movement-building involve estimations of the growth of EA resources that will result, and comparisons to financial returns; as movement-building returns decline they will start to fall under the financial return benchmark and no longer be expanded in that way
The Open Philanthropy Project has blogged about its use of the concept of a ‘last dollar’ opportunity cost of funds, asking for current spending whether in expectation it will do more good than saving it for future opportunities; assessing last dollars opportunity cost involves use of market investment returns, and the value of savings as insurance for the possibility of rare conditions that could provide enhanced returns (a collapse of other donors in core causes rather than a glut, major technological developments, etc)
Some other large and small donors likewise take into account future opportuntiies
Advisory institutions such as 80,000 Hours, charity evaluators, grantmakers, and affiliated academic researchers are positioned to advise change if donors start spending down too profligately (I for one stand ready for this wrt my advice to longtermist donors focused on existential risk)
All that said, it’s valuable to improve broader EA community understanding of intertemporal tradeoffs, and estimation of the relevant parameters to determine disbursement rates better.
Sorry, I wasn’t meaning we should be entirely punting to the future, and in case it’s not clear from my post my actual all-things-considered views is that longtermist EAs should be endorsing a mixed strategy of some significant proportion of effort spent on near-term longtermist activities and some proportion of effort spent on long-term longtermist activities.
I do agree that, at the moment, EA is mainly investing (e.g. because of Open Phil and because of human capital and because much actual expenditure is field-building-y, as you say). But it seems like at the moment that’s primarily because of management constraints and weirdness of borrowing-to-give (etc), rather than a principled plan to spread giving out over some (possibly very long) time period. Certainly the vibe in the air is ‘expenditure (of money or labour) now is super important, we should really be focusing on that’.
(I also don’t think that diminishing returns is entirely true: there are fixed costs and economies of scale when trying to do most things in the world, so I expect s-curves in general. If so, that would favour a lumpier disbursement schedule.)
I agree that many small donors do not have a principled plan and are trying to shift the overall portfolio towards more donation soon (which can have the effect of 100% now donation for an individual who is small relative to the overall portfolio).
However, I think that institutionally there are in fact mechanisms to regulate expenditures:
Evaluations of investments in movement-building involve estimations of the growth of EA resources that will result, and comparisons to financial returns; as movement-building returns decline they will start to fall under the financial return benchmark and no longer be expanded in that way
The Open Philanthropy Project has blogged about its use of the concept of a ‘last dollar’ opportunity cost of funds, asking for current spending whether in expectation it will do more good than saving it for future opportunities; assessing last dollars opportunity cost involves use of market investment returns, and the value of savings as insurance for the possibility of rare conditions that could provide enhanced returns (a collapse of other donors in core causes rather than a glut, major technological developments, etc)
Some other large and small donors likewise take into account future opportuntiies
Advisory institutions such as 80,000 Hours, charity evaluators, grantmakers, and affiliated academic researchers are positioned to advise change if donors start spending down too profligately (I for one stand ready for this wrt my advice to longtermist donors focused on existential risk)
All that said, it’s valuable to improve broader EA community understanding of intertemporal tradeoffs, and estimation of the relevant parameters to determine disbursement rates better.