My point is that “other people in the income bracket AFTER taking a lower paying job” is the wrong reference class.
Is there a single appropriate reference class here, as opposed to looking at multiple reference classes and weighting the results in some manner?
I agree that similarly situated person who decided to take a very high-paying job is a relevant reference class and should get some weight. However, it doesn’t follow that person with similar incomes working a non-impactful job is an irrelevant reference class or should get zero weight.
As Marcus notes, “[p]eople don’t choose to be smart enough to do ML work.” I would add that people don’t choose other factors that promote or inhibit their ability to choose a very high-paying job and/or a high-impact job (e.g., location and circumstances of birth, health, family obligations, etc.) In a pair of persons who are similarly situated economically, giving the more advantaged person a total pass on the moral obligation to donate money seems problematic to me. In this frame of reference, their advantages allowed them to land a more impactful job at the same salary as the less advantaged person—and in a sense we would be excusing them from a moral obligation because they are advantaged. (Giving the more privileged person a big break is also going to make it rather hard to establish substantial giving as a norm in the broader community, but that’s probably not in the scope of the question here.)
I don’t have a clear opinion on how to weight the two reference classes beyond an intuition that both classes should get perceptible weight. (It also seems plausible there are other reference classes to weigh as well, although I haven’t thought about what they might be.)
My argument is essentially that “similar income, non impactful job” is as relevant a reference class to the “similar income, impactful job person” as it is as a reference class to the “high income, non impactful job” person. I also personally think reference classes is the wrong way to think about it. If taking a more impactful job also makes someone obliged to take on a lower post donation salary (when they don’t have to), I feel like something has gone wrong, and the incentives are not aligned with doing the most good.
Is there a single appropriate reference class here, as opposed to looking at multiple reference classes and weighting the results in some manner?
I agree that similarly situated person who decided to take a very high-paying job is a relevant reference class and should get some weight. However, it doesn’t follow that person with similar incomes working a non-impactful job is an irrelevant reference class or should get zero weight.
As Marcus notes, “[p]eople don’t choose to be smart enough to do ML work.” I would add that people don’t choose other factors that promote or inhibit their ability to choose a very high-paying job and/or a high-impact job (e.g., location and circumstances of birth, health, family obligations, etc.) In a pair of persons who are similarly situated economically, giving the more advantaged person a total pass on the moral obligation to donate money seems problematic to me. In this frame of reference, their advantages allowed them to land a more impactful job at the same salary as the less advantaged person—and in a sense we would be excusing them from a moral obligation because they are advantaged. (Giving the more privileged person a big break is also going to make it rather hard to establish substantial giving as a norm in the broader community, but that’s probably not in the scope of the question here.)
I don’t have a clear opinion on how to weight the two reference classes beyond an intuition that both classes should get perceptible weight. (It also seems plausible there are other reference classes to weigh as well, although I haven’t thought about what they might be.)
My argument is essentially that “similar income, non impactful job” is as relevant a reference class to the “similar income, impactful job person” as it is as a reference class to the “high income, non impactful job” person. I also personally think reference classes is the wrong way to think about it. If taking a more impactful job also makes someone obliged to take on a lower post donation salary (when they don’t have to), I feel like something has gone wrong, and the incentives are not aligned with doing the most good.