Youâre more informed about what youâre giving up if you take the 10% Pledge after having worked for 1â5 years,
and itâs generally a good thing to be informed before you make life-long commitments!
But even still, I think being an undergrad at university is a pretty great time to take the 10% Pledge. Curious what you/âothers think of the arguments here.
One thought is: why should the default be to keep 100% of your income? The world seems on fire, money seems like it can do a lot of good, and the people weâre talking about pledging are likely pretty rich. I think in almost all cases, if youâre among the richest few percent of the world, itâs the right thing to do to give 10% (or more) of your income to effective charities. And I think that, even while youâre an undergrad, thereâs a good chance you can know with very high confidence youâre going to end up being among the richest few percent â assuming youâre not there already.
An analogy could be raising children as vegetarians/âvegans. I think this is a totally justified thing to do, and I personally wish I was raised vegetarian/âvegan, so that I never craved meat. Some think that itâs not fair to impose this dietary restriction on a child who canât make an informed choice, and itâd be better to only suggest they stop eating meat after they know what it tastes like. But given that eating meat is wrong (and itâs also an imposition on the child to make them eat meat before they know that it is wrong!) I donât think being an omnivore should be the default.
Thereâs admittedly an important disanalogy here: the parent isnât making a lifelong commitment on behalf of the child. But I think it still gets at something. At least in from my own experience, I feel like I benefited a lot from taking the 10% Pledge while at uni. If I hadnât, I think thereâs a good chance my commitment to my values could have drifted, and on top of that, every time I did give, itâd have felt like a big, voluntary/âoptional cost. Whereas now, it feels like a default, and I donât really know what itâs like to do things another way (something I value!).
That said, I think itâs pretty bad if anyone â but perhaps especially undergrads/âpeople who are less sure what theyâre signing up to â feels like they were pressured to make such a big commitment. And in general, itâs a rough situation if someone regrets it. But Iâve previously seen claims that undergrads pledging is bad, and should be discouraged, which seems like a step too far, and is more what I had in mind when I wrote this (sorry if thatâs not really making contact with your own views, Neel!).
I guess my issue is that this all seems strictly worse than âpledge to give 10% for the first 1-2 years after graduation, and then decide whether to commit for lifeâ. Even âyou commit for life, but with the option to withdraw 1-2 years after graduationâ, ie with the default to continue. Your arguments about not getting used to a full salary apply just as well to those imo
More broadly, I think itâs bad to justify getting young people without much life experience to make a lifetime pledge, based on a controversial belief (that it should be normal to give 10%), by saying that you personally believe that belief is true. In this specific case I agree with your belief! I took the pledge (shortly after graduating I think). But there are all kinds of beliefs I disagree with that I do not want people using here. Lots of young people make choices that they regret laterâIâm not saying they should be stopped from making these choices, but itâs bad to encourage them. I agree with Buck, at least to the extent of saying that undergrads whoâve been in EA for less than a year should not be encouraged to sign a lifetime pledge.
(On a meta level, the pledge can obviously be broken if someone really regrets it, itâs not legally binding. But I think arguments shouldnât rely on the pledge being breakable)
It seems pretty hard to argue with the idea that:
Youâre more informed about what youâre giving up if you take the 10% Pledge after having worked for 1â5 years,
and itâs generally a good thing to be informed before you make life-long commitments!
But even still, I think being an undergrad at university is a pretty great time to take the 10% Pledge. Curious what you/âothers think of the arguments here.
One thought is: why should the default be to keep 100% of your income? The world seems on fire, money seems like it can do a lot of good, and the people weâre talking about pledging are likely pretty rich. I think in almost all cases, if youâre among the richest few percent of the world, itâs the right thing to do to give 10% (or more) of your income to effective charities. And I think that, even while youâre an undergrad, thereâs a good chance you can know with very high confidence youâre going to end up being among the richest few percent â assuming youâre not there already.
An analogy could be raising children as vegetarians/âvegans. I think this is a totally justified thing to do, and I personally wish I was raised vegetarian/âvegan, so that I never craved meat. Some think that itâs not fair to impose this dietary restriction on a child who canât make an informed choice, and itâd be better to only suggest they stop eating meat after they know what it tastes like. But given that eating meat is wrong (and itâs also an imposition on the child to make them eat meat before they know that it is wrong!) I donât think being an omnivore should be the default.
Thereâs admittedly an important disanalogy here: the parent isnât making a lifelong commitment on behalf of the child. But I think it still gets at something. At least in from my own experience, I feel like I benefited a lot from taking the 10% Pledge while at uni. If I hadnât, I think thereâs a good chance my commitment to my values could have drifted, and on top of that, every time I did give, itâd have felt like a big, voluntary/âoptional cost. Whereas now, it feels like a default, and I donât really know what itâs like to do things another way (something I value!).
That said, I think itâs pretty bad if anyone â but perhaps especially undergrads/âpeople who are less sure what theyâre signing up to â feels like they were pressured to make such a big commitment. And in general, itâs a rough situation if someone regrets it. But Iâve previously seen claims that undergrads pledging is bad, and should be discouraged, which seems like a step too far, and is more what I had in mind when I wrote this (sorry if thatâs not really making contact with your own views, Neel!).
I guess my issue is that this all seems strictly worse than âpledge to give 10% for the first 1-2 years after graduation, and then decide whether to commit for lifeâ. Even âyou commit for life, but with the option to withdraw 1-2 years after graduationâ, ie with the default to continue. Your arguments about not getting used to a full salary apply just as well to those imo
More broadly, I think itâs bad to justify getting young people without much life experience to make a lifetime pledge, based on a controversial belief (that it should be normal to give 10%), by saying that you personally believe that belief is true. In this specific case I agree with your belief! I took the pledge (shortly after graduating I think). But there are all kinds of beliefs I disagree with that I do not want people using here. Lots of young people make choices that they regret laterâIâm not saying they should be stopped from making these choices, but itâs bad to encourage them. I agree with Buck, at least to the extent of saying that undergrads whoâve been in EA for less than a year should not be encouraged to sign a lifetime pledge.
(On a meta level, the pledge can obviously be broken if someone really regrets it, itâs not legally binding. But I think arguments shouldnât rely on the pledge being breakable)