Based on my experiences as a Yale undergraduate, I’ve come away with the perhaps overly pessimistic conclusion that a lot of class-privileged leftists at Ivy+ schools don’t actually resolve that contradiction, and are unfortunately not that interested in interrogating and addressing their class privilege, or thinking about redistributing what familial or future wealth / resources they may have access to. I say this as both a former organizer of Yale EA, but also as someone who started a Resource Generation chapter there, and found it difficult to get people to engage. By way of comparison, it was considerably easier to find people interested in the local DSA chapter.
(For context, Resource Generation is a movement that organizes young (USAmerican) people with wealth or class privilege to redistribute their wealth, land, and power, and I see it as perhaps the most viable movement for class-privileged US leftists who are really interested in addressing the contradiction of being both leftist and wealthy. See for example their giving pledge guidelines, which are considerably more ambitious than GWWC, and have as their goal for the ” top 10% to develop plans to redistribute all or almost all (see below) inherited wealth and/or excess income”. )
It’s hard to have a charitable take in response to that data, but I think it’s partly that people find it quite uncomfortable to talk about class, what more interrogate their own class privilege in a deep way. The other part is that the social incentives in these schools and activist circles tend to reward more external-facing leftist actions like fossil fuel divestment protests, and not internal-facing actions like confronting one’s wealthy family to redistribute their wealth—in part because to do that publicly, you have to reveal your family is wealthy, which isn’t exactly celebrated in leftist spaces.
As far as I remember it, it doesn’t actually make that strong a case that rich egalitarians ought to redistribute most of their wealth. (I actually think that most of what I got from that book was reflecting on some weird parallels between Marxism and AI risk thought, and the role of philosophers in both.) But it at least raises and somewhat discusses the question, and it’s by one of the main ‘analytical Marxists’ and so might have more initial credibility to leftists.
I have read the paper, not the book! And have tried to get friends to read it, though unfortunately I don’t think it was necessarily very effective either. I did end up writing an op-ed (Reparation, not just Charity) once trying to motivate wealthy students to redistribute more of their wealth, and it received a lot of likes on social media, but I’m not sure that it led to meaningful behavioral change :/ I think behavioral changes and commitments just take a lot more work, and a supportive community to encourage it.
Just for reference, there’s a group kinda like Resource Generation called Generation Pledge that got a grant from the EA Meta Fund. I think they’ve got a bit more of an EA emphasis.
Really cool to learn about resource generation. These fellows are hardcore. I promote the following to EA type people: -- Donate at least 10% of pre-tax income (I am above this) -- Be as frugal as you can. Certainly don’t spend more than could be supported by the median income in your city. -- Once you have at least ~500K net worth give away all additional income. In my opinion, 500K is enough to fund a lean retirement if you are willing to accept a little risk.
--If you get a big windfall I suggest either putting it in a trust or just earmarking it for charity instead of immediately donating the whole thing; your cause prioritization may change (I regret how I donated a big windfall during the first crypto bull market. )
I don’t think people should have to work if they don’t want to so I think it’s reasonable to ‘save yourself’. But don’t strive for too much security and keep your spending lean. I was objectively raised in a far from top 10% household and have no received much money from my parents. For example, they contributed zero dollars to my college. But anyone who is able to ‘speedrun to 500K while donating’ (or even seriously consider it) must be very privileged somehow.
If you actually take my advice seriously it is quite strict. But RG seems a lot more hardcore than that.
I feel like trying to be charitable here is missing the point.
It mostly is Moloch operating inside of the brains of people who are unaware that Moloch is a thing, so in a Hansonian sense they end up adopting lots of positions that pretend to be about helping the world, but are actually about jockeying for status position in their peer groups.
EA people also obviously are doing this, but the community is somewhat consciously trying to create an incentive dynamic where we get good status and belonging feelings from conspicuously burning resources in ways that are designed to do the most good for people distant in either time or space.
I don’t think xuan’s main point was about being charitable, although they had a few thoughts in that direction. More generally, trying to be charitable is usually good. Of course it’s going to miss a point (what finite comment isn’t), but maybe it’s making another?
I appreciate you trying to bring the discussion towards what you see as the real reason for lefty positions being held by privileged students (subconscious social status jockeying), but I wonder if there’s a more constructive way to speculate about this?
Maybe one prompt is: how would you approach a conversation with such a lefty friend to discover if that is their reason, or not?
You could be direct, put your cards on the table, and say you think they are just interested in the social status stuff, and let them defend themselves (that’s usually what happens when you attack someone’s subconscious motivation, regardless what’s true). Or you could start by asking yourself, what if I was wrong here? Is there is another reason they might hold this position on this topic? That might lead you to ask questions about their reasons. You could test how load-bearing their explanations are, by asking hypotheticals, or for them to be concrete and specific. Maybe you, or they, end up changing/modifying your position or beliefs, or at least have a good discussion, with at least one person having more understanding going out than you had coming in. In any case, I think a conversation that assumes good faith is more likely to lead to a productive discussion.
Circling back to the initial thing: I’m assuming that you do see the value in being charitable and assuming good faith in general, and just feel it is hard to practice this in conversations when people are very attached to their positions. But let me know if not, i.e. if you do genuinely think there is no point in being charitable (as that would be our true disagreement, this seems unlikely).
Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood you here.
+ nitpick: you use terms people might not have heard of. If I look up ‘Moloch’ I don’t immediately see the article by Scott Alexander that I think you have in mind, just a Wikipedia article about the god.
Based on my experiences as a Yale undergraduate, I’ve come away with the perhaps overly pessimistic conclusion that a lot of class-privileged leftists at Ivy+ schools don’t actually resolve that contradiction, and are unfortunately not that interested in interrogating and addressing their class privilege, or thinking about redistributing what familial or future wealth / resources they may have access to. I say this as both a former organizer of Yale EA, but also as someone who started a Resource Generation chapter there, and found it difficult to get people to engage. By way of comparison, it was considerably easier to find people interested in the local DSA chapter.
(For context, Resource Generation is a movement that organizes young (USAmerican) people with wealth or class privilege to redistribute their wealth, land, and power, and I see it as perhaps the most viable movement for class-privileged US leftists who are really interested in addressing the contradiction of being both leftist and wealthy. See for example their giving pledge guidelines, which are considerably more ambitious than GWWC, and have as their goal for the ” top 10% to develop plans to redistribute all or almost all (see below) inherited wealth and/or excess income”. )
It’s hard to have a charitable take in response to that data, but I think it’s partly that people find it quite uncomfortable to talk about class, what more interrogate their own class privilege in a deep way. The other part is that the social incentives in these schools and activist circles tend to reward more external-facing leftist actions like fossil fuel divestment protests, and not internal-facing actions like confronting one’s wealthy family to redistribute their wealth—in part because to do that publicly, you have to reveal your family is wealthy, which isn’t exactly celebrated in leftist spaces.
That’s really interesting, thanks for sharing your experience with these efforts.
Only partly on-topic, but I’m wondering if Jerry Cohen’s If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re so Rich? may be a good book for such audiences.
As far as I remember it, it doesn’t actually make that strong a case that rich egalitarians ought to redistribute most of their wealth. (I actually think that most of what I got from that book was reflecting on some weird parallels between Marxism and AI risk thought, and the role of philosophers in both.) But it at least raises and somewhat discusses the question, and it’s by one of the main ‘analytical Marxists’ and so might have more initial credibility to leftists.
I have read the paper, not the book! And have tried to get friends to read it, though unfortunately I don’t think it was necessarily very effective either. I did end up writing an op-ed (Reparation, not just Charity) once trying to motivate wealthy students to redistribute more of their wealth, and it received a lot of likes on social media, but I’m not sure that it led to meaningful behavioral change :/ I think behavioral changes and commitments just take a lot more work, and a supportive community to encourage it.
Just for reference, there’s a group kinda like Resource Generation called Generation Pledge that got a grant from the EA Meta Fund. I think they’ve got a bit more of an EA emphasis.
Really cool to learn about resource generation. These fellows are hardcore. I promote the following to EA type people:
-- Donate at least 10% of pre-tax income (I am above this)
-- Be as frugal as you can. Certainly don’t spend more than could be supported by the median income in your city.
-- Once you have at least ~500K net worth give away all additional income. In my opinion, 500K is enough to fund a lean retirement if you are willing to accept a little risk.
--If you get a big windfall I suggest either putting it in a trust or just earmarking it for charity instead of immediately donating the whole thing; your cause prioritization may change (I regret how I donated a big windfall during the first crypto bull market. )
I don’t think people should have to work if they don’t want to so I think it’s reasonable to ‘save yourself’. But don’t strive for too much security and keep your spending lean. I was objectively raised in a far from top 10% household and have no received much money from my parents. For example, they contributed zero dollars to my college. But anyone who is able to ‘speedrun to 500K while donating’ (or even seriously consider it) must be very privileged somehow.
If you actually take my advice seriously it is quite strict. But RG seems a lot more hardcore than that.
I feel like trying to be charitable here is missing the point.
It mostly is Moloch operating inside of the brains of people who are unaware that Moloch is a thing, so in a Hansonian sense they end up adopting lots of positions that pretend to be about helping the world, but are actually about jockeying for status position in their peer groups.
EA people also obviously are doing this, but the community is somewhat consciously trying to create an incentive dynamic where we get good status and belonging feelings from conspicuously burning resources in ways that are designed to do the most good for people distant in either time or space.
I don’t think xuan’s main point was about being charitable, although they had a few thoughts in that direction. More generally, trying to be charitable is usually good. Of course it’s going to miss a point (what finite comment isn’t), but maybe it’s making another?
I appreciate you trying to bring the discussion towards what you see as the real reason for lefty positions being held by privileged students (subconscious social status jockeying), but I wonder if there’s a more constructive way to speculate about this?
Maybe one prompt is: how would you approach a conversation with such a lefty friend to discover if that is their reason, or not?
You could be direct, put your cards on the table, and say you think they are just interested in the social status stuff, and let them defend themselves (that’s usually what happens when you attack someone’s subconscious motivation, regardless what’s true). Or you could start by asking yourself, what if I was wrong here? Is there is another reason they might hold this position on this topic? That might lead you to ask questions about their reasons. You could test how load-bearing their explanations are, by asking hypotheticals, or for them to be concrete and specific. Maybe you, or they, end up changing/modifying your position or beliefs, or at least have a good discussion, with at least one person having more understanding going out than you had coming in. In any case, I think a conversation that assumes good faith is more likely to lead to a productive discussion.
Circling back to the initial thing: I’m assuming that you do see the value in being charitable and assuming good faith in general, and just feel it is hard to practice this in conversations when people are very attached to their positions. But let me know if not, i.e. if you do genuinely think there is no point in being charitable (as that would be our true disagreement, this seems unlikely).
Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood you here.
+ nitpick: you use terms people might not have heard of. If I look up ‘Moloch’ I don’t immediately see the article by Scott Alexander that I think you have in mind, just a Wikipedia article about the god.