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).
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).