[EDIT: As Linch pointed out, not necessarily good reasons to not participate in a donor lottery]
I think there are two additional criteria for participation in a donor lottery [EDIT: assuming you are less comfortable with random/speculative impact]:
1) The average winner would do at least as good a job as you in selecting where to donate as if you hadn’t participated.
It means their enormous time sink in investigating where to donate would yield donation options at least as good as those from your cursory investigation. That’s a relatively low bar, but it’s still there.
If you are unusually rational and conscientious with your giving (which includes most in the EA community), then there is a good chance your giving will be more effective than a less conscientious person, even if they spent substantially more time thinking about where to donate. I anticipate most EAs would be more likely to join a donor lottery with other EAs than a lottery with participants sampled from the general population. For a random person in the population, there is a good chance your “cursory” investigation is as good or better than their “detailed” investigation.
2) You share similar values on what is most important as the others in the donor lottery
Say I joined a donor lottery with three other people. They have different ideas of what is most beneficial to the world. For one, it is building monuments to Chtulu. For another, it is dyeing cats purple. And for the last one, it is increasing the number of shrubs in their neighborhood. Even if more time allows them to find the best giving opportunities for the things they care about, I see little additional value in a world with a higher concentration of Cthulhu monuments, purple cats, or neighborhood shrubbery.
I think this is incorrect; if a normal lottery ends up being +EV it’s still rational to put your money in it, even if you then think the other lottery participants have worse epistemics or values to you (which is normal and unsurprising).
Yeah, I suppose that’s true. It’s still +EV even if the money disappears into a blackhole if you don’t win, because if you win, you get to spend more time deciding where to donate.
I guess my hesitation around the lotteries is I’m uncomfortable with expected value calculations at the extremes (e.g. 1 in a million chance to win for a million more impact), and that I’d experience regret if I didn’t think the eventually winner was thoughtful in their giving (even if it is still +EV).
I mean, I’d still be hesitant at a 1% chance. Let’s say I give my donations every year for 40 years to a donor lottery at a 1% chance. Then it’s a 0.99^40 = 67% chance I’d never get to choose where the money goes. Personally, I’m not sure I could handle that. I’d more comfortable with 10% odds.
Seems similar to startups as an earning to give approach. It makes more sense for 10 people to attempt start-ups than to pursue high-paying careers because the expected value is larger. But it really sucks for the people that never succeed, and many probably give up earning to give and leave the movement altogether. It’s a high price to pay in terms of community and mental health for greater expected aggregate impact.
Ideally there would be some way to involve lottery losers in the win—at least acknowledging them, or having them give feedback on a draft giving proposal. That would help counteract the wearing feeling of pitching money into the void, without negating too much of the benefit of having one person do all the heavy work of deciding where to give.
[EDIT: As Linch pointed out, not necessarily good reasons to not participate in a donor lottery]
I think there are two additional criteria for participation in a donor lottery [EDIT: assuming you are less comfortable with random/speculative impact]:
1) The average winner would do at least as good a job as you in selecting where to donate as if you hadn’t participated.
It means their enormous time sink in investigating where to donate would yield donation options at least as good as those from your cursory investigation. That’s a relatively low bar, but it’s still there.
If you are unusually rational and conscientious with your giving (which includes most in the EA community), then there is a good chance your giving will be more effective than a less conscientious person, even if they spent substantially more time thinking about where to donate. I anticipate most EAs would be more likely to join a donor lottery with other EAs than a lottery with participants sampled from the general population. For a random person in the population, there is a good chance your “cursory” investigation is as good or better than their “detailed” investigation.
2) You share similar values on what is most important as the others in the donor lottery
Say I joined a donor lottery with three other people. They have different ideas of what is most beneficial to the world. For one, it is building monuments to Chtulu. For another, it is dyeing cats purple. And for the last one, it is increasing the number of shrubs in their neighborhood. Even if more time allows them to find the best giving opportunities for the things they care about, I see little additional value in a world with a higher concentration of Cthulhu monuments, purple cats, or neighborhood shrubbery.
I think this is incorrect; if a normal lottery ends up being +EV it’s still rational to put your money in it, even if you then think the other lottery participants have worse epistemics or values to you (which is normal and unsurprising).
Yeah, I suppose that’s true. It’s still +EV even if the money disappears into a blackhole if you don’t win, because if you win, you get to spend more time deciding where to donate.
I guess my hesitation around the lotteries is I’m uncomfortable with expected value calculations at the extremes (e.g. 1 in a million chance to win for a million more impact), and that I’d experience regret if I didn’t think the eventually winner was thoughtful in their giving (even if it is still +EV).
We’re not talking about one in a million odds, though? We’re talking about 1%
I mean, I’d still be hesitant at a 1% chance. Let’s say I give my donations every year for 40 years to a donor lottery at a 1% chance. Then it’s a 0.99^40 = 67% chance I’d never get to choose where the money goes. Personally, I’m not sure I could handle that. I’d more comfortable with 10% odds.
Seems similar to startups as an earning to give approach. It makes more sense for 10 people to attempt start-ups than to pursue high-paying careers because the expected value is larger. But it really sucks for the people that never succeed, and many probably give up earning to give and leave the movement altogether. It’s a high price to pay in terms of community and mental health for greater expected aggregate impact.
Ideally there would be some way to involve lottery losers in the win—at least acknowledging them, or having them give feedback on a draft giving proposal. That would help counteract the wearing feeling of pitching money into the void, without negating too much of the benefit of having one person do all the heavy work of deciding where to give.