I included these common counterarguments to show that they don’t really address the issue. Argument 1 isn’t relevant. It does get used all the time, but it’s a whataboutism at best. Argument 2 is a false dilemma. It might be true that billionaire philanthropy is better than government programs (although while I’ve often seen it being asserted, I’ve never actually seen it demonstrated), but even if we grant that it doesn’t matter because those two aren’t our only options, it’s a false dilemma.
I’m not sure I understand the first point—doesn’t (1) straightforwardly imply a lower (relative) importance in an ITN framework?
And re (2): the third option you think we should consider is something like a citizen’s assembly? If so, am I correct in understanding that no evidence that these outperform billionaire philanthropy was presented? (Perhaps you plan to do this in a future post, or something?)
ITN framework? This is post is not a proposal for a cause area, it’s an analysis of whether Billionaire Philanthropists are effective. If someone says ‘but the government is bigger’ then that doesn’t really change the evaluation. Same for two, we can’t assume that billionaire philanthropy is effective if we haven’t even compared it to the other options. So I’m making an inductive claim that, given the demonstrated problems with billionaire philanthropy and given that there are many other options out there, it seems reasonable to assume that something else is actually ‘the most good we can do’.
Ok, so your claim is something like “while I haven’t rigorously evaluated it, it seems likely that there are ways that the money currently being donated by billionaires could be more effectively (by EA-values) spent?” (But you make no further claims like ”...And therefore, improving the way billionaires spend their money is likely to be an intervention that scores well according to traditional EA frameworks like ITN.)
It’s not about the current spending it’s about the overall system of allocation. Currently our political economy has implemented a system where some people accumulate billions of dollars in private wealth. I’ve seen people in the EA-sphere and beyond defend this system on the basis of effective philanthropy. So I made a post evaluating this claim and found it lacking. My hope is that people will now either stop, or find a new defense for why this is the best we can do (well, I say ‘hope’, but that might be gone by now).
Hi Ben, thanks for reading
I included these common counterarguments to show that they don’t really address the issue.
Argument 1 isn’t relevant. It does get used all the time, but it’s a whataboutism at best.
Argument 2 is a false dilemma. It might be true that billionaire philanthropy is better than government programs (although while I’ve often seen it being asserted, I’ve never actually seen it demonstrated), but even if we grant that it doesn’t matter because those two aren’t our only options, it’s a false dilemma.
Thanks for clarifying, Bob.
I’m not sure I understand the first point—doesn’t (1) straightforwardly imply a lower (relative) importance in an ITN framework?
And re (2): the third option you think we should consider is something like a citizen’s assembly? If so, am I correct in understanding that no evidence that these outperform billionaire philanthropy was presented? (Perhaps you plan to do this in a future post, or something?)
ITN framework? This is post is not a proposal for a cause area, it’s an analysis of whether Billionaire Philanthropists are effective. If someone says ‘but the government is bigger’ then that doesn’t really change the evaluation.
Same for two, we can’t assume that billionaire philanthropy is effective if we haven’t even compared it to the other options. So I’m making an inductive claim that, given the demonstrated problems with billionaire philanthropy and given that there are many other options out there, it seems reasonable to assume that something else is actually ‘the most good we can do’.
Ok, so your claim is something like “while I haven’t rigorously evaluated it, it seems likely that there are ways that the money currently being donated by billionaires could be more effectively (by EA-values) spent?” (But you make no further claims like ”...And therefore, improving the way billionaires spend their money is likely to be an intervention that scores well according to traditional EA frameworks like ITN.)
It’s not about the current spending it’s about the overall system of allocation. Currently our political economy has implemented a system where some people accumulate billions of dollars in private wealth. I’ve seen people in the EA-sphere and beyond defend this system on the basis of effective philanthropy. So I made a post evaluating this claim and found it lacking. My hope is that people will now either stop, or find a new defense for why this is the best we can do (well, I say ‘hope’, but that might be gone by now).