Quoted Zvi here seems to fail at some combination of thinking on the margin and distinguishing means and ends. GiveWell_USA is also not what Zvi’s take implies you should do.
Quoted Zvi emphasizes that functioning, long-run-sustainable groups/societies are necessary for achieving big things in the world. If you wholly neglect in-group beneficence, your group will fail, and you’ll fail at whatever big thing you were trying to do. This is true and I think any sensible EA acknowledges it.
What is not true and potentially down-right-silly, is saying that in-group beneficence must therefore become your terminal goal. I fear that’s what this post suggests.
If your terminal goal is global well-being, you should do whatever amount of in-group beneficence maximizes global well-being. And crucially, it is extremely implausible this amount is 100% of your effort or anything close to that. People watch Netflix and buy Range Rovers – these do nothing for their communities, yet no one worries the communities where people do these things are at risk of failure. In fact, the leisure hours and number of nice cars are often how community success is measured. That’s because these consumer goods are treated as terminal goods. Other things can fill that role with similarly low risk to group sustainability.
I think quoted Zvi is attacking a strawman EA who neglects all his relationships and investments to give his last scrap of food to the poor right now. Yes, that strawman EA’s movement won’t last long. EAs with good jobs getting promotions donating 10% or building highly-functional, well-paying non-profits are not that straw man though. They just notice that the marginal income/effort others put towards nicer cars and bigger houses can be applied to something more meaningful.
Separately, I don’t think GiveWell_USA is what Zvi’s quote has in mind. Neighbors and co-nationals are arbitrary groupings in more ways than just morally. I think Zvi’s suggestion is to invest in especially reciprocal and compounding relationships for you and your people defined by some measure you care about. For most people this is a cluster of family and close friends, for rationalists, I think it’s other rationalists, maybe churches, I don’t know. I suppose you could choose the US as your tribe, but reciprocity is going to be a lot weaker than in the previous examples and will thereby suffer from Zvi’s critique. An American Patriots Union building lots of tiny homes for the American homeless [1] might well see it’s coffers and membership run dry after a few decades of none of the people they housed feeling particularly inclined to join or otherwise help the APU in particular. Nothing about the beneficiaries being American made this inherently more reciprocal than bednets for foreigners.
If what you want is a guide on how to build a group that endlessly accumulates social capital and never deploys that capital to any end in particular, I think the partnership of major law/consulting/finance firms or the major political parties are the right models to work with. I just don’t think those groups’ practice of self-interest is worthwhile compared to saving lives.
I guess I don’t really understand Zvi and Nate here. Having a healthy community is important, and becoming a monk and starving yourself decreases the amount of positive impact you can have. EAs know this and consider sacrificing long-term resources for short term donations/impact a mistake.
Good point about nationalities being arbitrary and not really reciprocal.
Quoted Zvi here seems to fail at some combination of thinking on the margin and distinguishing means and ends. GiveWell_USA is also not what Zvi’s take implies you should do.
Quoted Zvi emphasizes that functioning, long-run-sustainable groups/societies are necessary for achieving big things in the world. If you wholly neglect in-group beneficence, your group will fail, and you’ll fail at whatever big thing you were trying to do. This is true and I think any sensible EA acknowledges it.
What is not true and potentially down-right-silly, is saying that in-group beneficence must therefore become your terminal goal. I fear that’s what this post suggests.
If your terminal goal is global well-being, you should do whatever amount of in-group beneficence maximizes global well-being. And crucially, it is extremely implausible this amount is 100% of your effort or anything close to that. People watch Netflix and buy Range Rovers – these do nothing for their communities, yet no one worries the communities where people do these things are at risk of failure. In fact, the leisure hours and number of nice cars are often how community success is measured. That’s because these consumer goods are treated as terminal goods. Other things can fill that role with similarly low risk to group sustainability.
I think quoted Zvi is attacking a strawman EA who neglects all his relationships and investments to give his last scrap of food to the poor right now. Yes, that strawman EA’s movement won’t last long. EAs with good jobs getting promotions donating 10% or building highly-functional, well-paying non-profits are not that straw man though. They just notice that the marginal income/effort others put towards nicer cars and bigger houses can be applied to something more meaningful.
Separately, I don’t think GiveWell_USA is what Zvi’s quote has in mind. Neighbors and co-nationals are arbitrary groupings in more ways than just morally. I think Zvi’s suggestion is to invest in especially reciprocal and compounding relationships for you and your people defined by some measure you care about. For most people this is a cluster of family and close friends, for rationalists, I think it’s other rationalists, maybe churches, I don’t know. I suppose you could choose the US as your tribe, but reciprocity is going to be a lot weaker than in the previous examples and will thereby suffer from Zvi’s critique. An American Patriots Union building lots of tiny homes for the American homeless [1] might well see it’s coffers and membership run dry after a few decades of none of the people they housed feeling particularly inclined to join or otherwise help the APU in particular. Nothing about the beneficiaries being American made this inherently more reciprocal than bednets for foreigners.
If what you want is a guide on how to build a group that endlessly accumulates social capital and never deploys that capital to any end in particular, I think the partnership of major law/consulting/finance firms or the major political parties are the right models to work with. I just don’t think those groups’ practice of self-interest is worthwhile compared to saving lives.
let’s say hypothetically this is the most QALYs/$ you can do in the US
I guess I don’t really understand Zvi and Nate here. Having a healthy community is important, and becoming a monk and starving yourself decreases the amount of positive impact you can have. EAs know this and consider sacrificing long-term resources for short term donations/impact a mistake.
Good point about nationalities being arbitrary and not really reciprocal.