Assigns 100% of their future impact to you, not counting their own contribution and the other sources that caused this change. It’s the same kind of simplification as “every blood donation saves 3 lives”, when what they mean is “your blood will probably go to three people, each of whom will receive donations from many people.”
Assumes perfect follow up. This isn’t realistic for a median pledger, but we might expect people who were tipped into pledging by a single act by a single person to have worse follow-up than people who find it on their own. You could argue it isn’t actually one action, there were lots of causes and that makes it stickier, but then you run into #1 even harder.
Reifies signing the pledge as the moment everything changes, while vibing that this is a small deal you can stop when you feel like it.
Assumes every pledger you recruit makes exactly the same amount. Part of me thinks this is a nit pick. You could assume people recruit people who on average earn similar salaries, or think it’s just not worth doing the math on likely income of secondary recruitment. Another part thinks it’s downstream of the same root cause as the other issues, and any real fix to those will fix this as well.
The word “effective” is doing a lot of work. What if they have different tastes than I do? What if they think PlayPumps are a great idea? .
Treating the counterfactual as 0.
As I write this out I’m realizing my objection isn’t just the bad math. It’s closer to treating pledge-takiers as the unit of measurement, with all pledges or at least all dollars donated being interchangeable. People who are recruited/inspired by a single person are likely to have different follow through and charitable targets than people inspired by many people over time, who are different than people driven to do this themselves. ?
I don’t think it does assume perfect follow-up, it just assumes roughly the same follow-up from them as you. I hear you that maybe people you tip into taking the pledge are systematically different in a way that makes you doubt that as well, but I’m not actually convinced this difference is that substantial.
Similarly, I don’t think different amounts of income feels like a big problem with this sentiment to me, as long as their income isn’t systematically less (or more!) than yours. It feels like an imprecision, but if it’s true on average it’s not one I particularly resent.
(I think the rest of your points seem fine so overall I still agree with your bottom line.)
My model is that at least one of the following must be true: you’re one factor among many that caused the change, the change is not actually that big, or attrition will be much higher than standard pledge takers.
Which is fine. Accepting the framing around influencing others[1]: you will be one of many factors, but your influence will extend past one person. But I think it’s good to acknowledge the complexity.
I separately question whether the pledge is the best way to achieve this goal. Why lock in a decision for your entire life instead of, say, taking a lesson in how to talk about your donations in ways that make people feel energized instead of judged?
Assigns 100% of their future impact to you, not counting their own contribution and the other sources that caused this change. It’s the same kind of simplification as “every blood donation saves 3 lives”, when what they mean is “your blood will probably go to three people, each of whom will receive donations from many people.”
Assumes perfect follow up. This isn’t realistic for a median pledger, but we might expect people who were tipped into pledging by a single act by a single person to have worse follow-up than people who find it on their own. You could argue it isn’t actually one action, there were lots of causes and that makes it stickier, but then you run into #1 even harder.
Reifies signing the pledge as the moment everything changes, while vibing that this is a small deal you can stop when you feel like it.
Assumes every pledger you recruit makes exactly the same amount. Part of me thinks this is a nit pick. You could assume people recruit people who on average earn similar salaries, or think it’s just not worth doing the math on likely income of secondary recruitment. Another part thinks it’s downstream of the same root cause as the other issues, and any real fix to those will fix this as well.
The word “effective” is doing a lot of work. What if they have different tastes than I do? What if they think PlayPumps are a great idea? .
Treating the counterfactual as 0.
As I write this out I’m realizing my objection isn’t just the bad math. It’s closer to treating pledge-takiers as the unit of measurement, with all pledges or at least all dollars donated being interchangeable. People who are recruited/inspired by a single person are likely to have different follow through and charitable targets than people inspired by many people over time, who are different than people driven to do this themselves. ?
I don’t think it does assume perfect follow-up, it just assumes roughly the same follow-up from them as you. I hear you that maybe people you tip into taking the pledge are systematically different in a way that makes you doubt that as well, but I’m not actually convinced this difference is that substantial.
Similarly, I don’t think different amounts of income feels like a big problem with this sentiment to me, as long as their income isn’t systematically less (or more!) than yours. It feels like an imprecision, but if it’s true on average it’s not one I particularly resent.
(I think the rest of your points seem fine so overall I still agree with your bottom line.)
My model is that at least one of the following must be true: you’re one factor among many that caused the change, the change is not actually that big, or attrition will be much higher than standard pledge takers.
Which is fine. Accepting the framing around influencing others[1]: you will be one of many factors, but your influence will extend past one person. But I think it’s good to acknowledge the complexity.
I separately question whether the pledge is the best way to achieve this goal. Why lock in a decision for your entire life instead of, say, taking a lesson in how to talk about your donations in ways that make people feel energized instead of judged?