Part of me thinks we should spend years reflecting on lifelong decisions before making them; hence, we ought not encourage young people (e.g., university students) to sign the GWWC pledge.
However, a bigger part of me thinks locking in altruistic desires to mitigate future selfishness is *exactly* what we should be doing. Some argue that we shouldn’t make life-long decisions as young people because our preferences and values may change. Yet, to me, this is all the more reason to take the GWWC pledge; it is precisely because our altruistic tendencies might weaken that we should lock those values in. I want to do things that increase the likelihood of future-Sam still wanting to help others as much as current-Sam.
Separately, starting to donate when you’re young can make the process much easier! I began giving 10% when I got my first job at 16, and it has never felt aversive or difficult. I don’t think “I’ve earnt £100, so now I have to give up £10”, instead, I just view it as earning £90. I imagine that if I started this practice aged 40, I would long for that extra £10 much more.
I personally think it’s quite bad to try to get people to sign a lifetime giving pledge before they’ve ever had a real job, and think this is overemphasized in EA.
I think it’s much better to eg make a pledge for the next 1-5 years, or the first year of your career, or something, and re-evaluate at the end of that, which I think mitigates some of your concerns
You’re more informed about what you’re giving up if you take the 10% Pledge after having worked for 1–5 years,
and it’s 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/others 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 we’re talking about pledging are likely pretty rich. I think in almost all cases, if you’re among the richest few percent of the world, it’s the right thing to do to give 10% (or more) of your income to effective charities. And I think that, even while you’re an undergrad, there’s a good chance you can know with very high confidence you’re going to end up being among the richest few percent — assuming you’re not there already.
An analogy could be raising children as vegetarians/vegans. I think this is a totally justified thing to do, and I personally wish I was raised vegetarian/vegan, so that I never craved meat. Some think that it’s not fair to impose this dietary restriction on a child who can’t make an informed choice, and it’d be better to only suggest they stop eating meat after they know what it tastes like. But given that eating meat is wrong (and it’s also an imposition on the child to make them eat meat before they know that it is wrong!) I don’t think being an omnivore should be the default.
There’s admittedly an important disanalogy here: the parent isn’t 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 hadn’t, I think there’s a good chance my commitment to my values could have drifted, and on top of that, every time I did give, it’d have felt like a big, voluntary/optional cost. Whereas now, it feels like a default, and I don’t really know what it’s like to do things another way (something I value!).
That said, I think it’s pretty bad if anyone — but perhaps especially undergrads/people who are less sure what they’re signing up to — feels like they were pressured to make such a big commitment. And in general, it’s a rough situation if someone regrets it. But I’ve 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 that’s not really making contact with your own views, Neel!).
I guess my issue is that this all seems strictly worse than “pledge to give 10% for the first 1-2 years after graduation, and then decide whether to commit for life”. Even “you commit for life, but with the option to withdraw 1-2 years after graduation”, 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 it’s 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 later—I’m not saying they should be stopped from making these choices, but it’s bad to encourage them. I agree with Buck, at least to the extent of saying that undergrads who’ve 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, it’s not legally binding. But I think arguments shouldn’t rely on the pledge being breakable)
I think the pledge hits a sweet spot. It’s not legally binding, so it’s not really a lifelong decision, but being a public commitment helps push people to stick to their altruistic values.
Currently at GWWC in our materials for EA Groups, we suggest that a Trial Pledge is a good starting point for people who are interested in effective giving, but are just learning about it.
My personal POV: I think it’s generally a good idea for people to try out giving 10% or take a Trial Pledge before committing to the 10% Pledge. I think it’s important that people feel comfortable with giving that amount and think seriously about what tradeoffs they might need to make if they take a 10% Pledge. But I think introducing people to the idea of the 10% Pledge at university is a good idea. We see people end up taking pledges even 10+ years after learning about it at university!
Part of me thinks we should spend years reflecting on lifelong decisions before making them; hence, we ought not encourage young people (e.g., university students) to sign the GWWC pledge.
However, a bigger part of me thinks locking in altruistic desires to mitigate future selfishness is *exactly* what we should be doing. Some argue that we shouldn’t make life-long decisions as young people because our preferences and values may change. Yet, to me, this is all the more reason to take the GWWC pledge; it is precisely because our altruistic tendencies might weaken that we should lock those values in. I want to do things that increase the likelihood of future-Sam still wanting to help others as much as current-Sam.
Separately, starting to donate when you’re young can make the process much easier! I began giving 10% when I got my first job at 16, and it has never felt aversive or difficult. I don’t think “I’ve earnt £100, so now I have to give up £10”, instead, I just view it as earning £90. I imagine that if I started this practice aged 40, I would long for that extra £10 much more.
I personally think it’s quite bad to try to get people to sign a lifetime giving pledge before they’ve ever had a real job, and think this is overemphasized in EA.
I think it’s much better to eg make a pledge for the next 1-5 years, or the first year of your career, or something, and re-evaluate at the end of that, which I think mitigates some of your concerns
It seems pretty hard to argue with the idea that:
You’re more informed about what you’re giving up if you take the 10% Pledge after having worked for 1–5 years,
and it’s 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/others 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 we’re talking about pledging are likely pretty rich. I think in almost all cases, if you’re among the richest few percent of the world, it’s the right thing to do to give 10% (or more) of your income to effective charities. And I think that, even while you’re an undergrad, there’s a good chance you can know with very high confidence you’re going to end up being among the richest few percent — assuming you’re not there already.
An analogy could be raising children as vegetarians/vegans. I think this is a totally justified thing to do, and I personally wish I was raised vegetarian/vegan, so that I never craved meat. Some think that it’s not fair to impose this dietary restriction on a child who can’t make an informed choice, and it’d be better to only suggest they stop eating meat after they know what it tastes like. But given that eating meat is wrong (and it’s also an imposition on the child to make them eat meat before they know that it is wrong!) I don’t think being an omnivore should be the default.
There’s admittedly an important disanalogy here: the parent isn’t 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 hadn’t, I think there’s a good chance my commitment to my values could have drifted, and on top of that, every time I did give, it’d have felt like a big, voluntary/optional cost. Whereas now, it feels like a default, and I don’t really know what it’s like to do things another way (something I value!).
That said, I think it’s pretty bad if anyone — but perhaps especially undergrads/people who are less sure what they’re signing up to — feels like they were pressured to make such a big commitment. And in general, it’s a rough situation if someone regrets it. But I’ve 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 that’s not really making contact with your own views, Neel!).
I guess my issue is that this all seems strictly worse than “pledge to give 10% for the first 1-2 years after graduation, and then decide whether to commit for life”. Even “you commit for life, but with the option to withdraw 1-2 years after graduation”, 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 it’s 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 later—I’m not saying they should be stopped from making these choices, but it’s bad to encourage them. I agree with Buck, at least to the extent of saying that undergrads who’ve 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, it’s not legally binding. But I think arguments shouldn’t rely on the pledge being breakable)
I think the pledge hits a sweet spot. It’s not legally binding, so it’s not really a lifelong decision, but being a public commitment helps push people to stick to their altruistic values.
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/faq/is-a-giving-pledge-legally-binding
Currently at GWWC in our materials for EA Groups, we suggest that a Trial Pledge is a good starting point for people who are interested in effective giving, but are just learning about it.
My personal POV: I think it’s generally a good idea for people to try out giving 10% or take a Trial Pledge before committing to the 10% Pledge. I think it’s important that people feel comfortable with giving that amount and think seriously about what tradeoffs they might need to make if they take a 10% Pledge. But I think introducing people to the idea of the 10% Pledge at university is a good idea. We see people end up taking pledges even 10+ years after learning about it at university!