I would love to know if you decided to go forward with Movember this year. I would also be really torn about this. On one hand making a visual statement about being philanthropic helps destigmatize talking about where you donate and why. This is good if your long term goal is to create a large culture shift more towards EA values. The downside being that it takes a long time and a ton of effort and may mean people donate sub-optimally. I think you are right that this is very unlikely to pull any money from highly effective causes since this strategy is aimed at signally groups and people outside of EA.
However Inside EA and as an organizer it can feel hypocritical, I totally understand/agree. It can feel like not ‘walking the walk’ so to speak. I think there could be a number of solutions. One could be participating in Movember but fundraising for an EA charity—you get the benefits mentioned above but get to give money to an EA cause. The other could be to find the most effective men’s health organization you can and donate to them instead. In both of these cases I think the key would be to talk a lot about why.
I would love to know if you decided to go forward with Movember this year. I would also be really torn about this. On one hand making a visual statement about being philanthropic helps destigmatize talking about where you donate and why. This is good if your long term goal is to create a large culture shift more towards EA values. The downside being that it takes a long time and a ton of effort and may mean people donate sub-optimally. I think you are right that this is very unlikely to pull any money from highly effective causes since this strategy is aimed at signally groups and people outside of EA.
However Inside EA and as an organizer it can feel hypocritical, I totally understand/agree. It can feel like not ‘walking the walk’ so to speak. I think there could be a number of solutions. One could be participating in Movember but fundraising for an EA charity—you get the benefits mentioned above but get to give money to an EA cause. The other could be to find the most effective men’s health organization you can and donate to them instead. In both of these cases I think the key would be to talk a lot about why.