I’m curious why you and many EA’s who focus on longtermism don’t suggest donating to longtermist cause areas (as examples often focuses on Givewell or ACE charities). It seems like if orgs I respect like Open Phil and long term future fund are giving to longtermist areas, then they think that’s among the most important things to fund, which confuses me when I then hear longtermists acting like funding is useless on the margin or that we might as well give to GiveWell charities. It gives me a sense that perhaps there’s either some contradiction going on, or I’m missing something, but either way it makes it very difficult for me to get others excited about longtermism if they won’t enter it with their career and even the die-hard longtermists are saying marginal funding is useless or at least worse than GiveWell charities.
I don’t mean to imply that, and I agree it probably doesn’t make sense to think longtermist causes are top and then not donate to them. I was just using 10x GiveDirectly as an example of where the bar is within near termism. For longtermists, the equivalent is donating to the EA Long-term or Infrastructure Funds. Personally I’d donate to those over GiveWell-recommended charities. I’ve edited the post to clarify.
I’m curious why you and many EA’s who focus on longtermism don’t suggest donating to longtermist cause areas (as examples often focuses on Givewell or ACE charities). It seems like if orgs I respect like Open Phil and long term future fund are giving to longtermist areas, then they think that’s among the most important things to fund, which confuses me when I then hear longtermists acting like funding is useless on the margin or that we might as well give to GiveWell charities. It gives me a sense that perhaps there’s either some contradiction going on, or I’m missing something, but either way it makes it very difficult for me to get others excited about longtermism if they won’t enter it with their career and even the die-hard longtermists are saying marginal funding is useless or at least worse than GiveWell charities.
I don’t mean to imply that, and I agree it probably doesn’t make sense to think longtermist causes are top and then not donate to them. I was just using 10x GiveDirectly as an example of where the bar is within near termism. For longtermists, the equivalent is donating to the EA Long-term or Infrastructure Funds. Personally I’d donate to those over GiveWell-recommended charities. I’ve edited the post to clarify.