That’s all reasonable. I think the strongest point Alasdair could be making is the claim that even those people could afford to spends $10s or even $100s themselves. (I agree that that claim isn’t obviously true though, depending on what you mean by ‘afford’.) By contrast, most GiveWell staff couldn’t afford to work for no salary whatsoever.
Even if they could, that may be demanding a higher level of self-sacrifice from volunteers than we want to… consider that giving 10+% of your time/income qualifies you for EA status, so if someone is giving 20% of their time and living paycheck to paycheck, asking for more money on top of that feels like it will set the bar too high for some worthy volunteers.
That’s all reasonable. I think the strongest point Alasdair could be making is the claim that even those people could afford to spends $10s or even $100s themselves. (I agree that that claim isn’t obviously true though, depending on what you mean by ‘afford’.) By contrast, most GiveWell staff couldn’t afford to work for no salary whatsoever.
Even if they could, that may be demanding a higher level of self-sacrifice from volunteers than we want to… consider that giving 10+% of your time/income qualifies you for EA status, so if someone is giving 20% of their time and living paycheck to paycheck, asking for more money on top of that feels like it will set the bar too high for some worthy volunteers.