What operative conclusion can be drawn from the “importance” of this century. If it turned out to be only the 17th most important century, would that affect our choices?
One major implication is that we should spend our altruistic and charity money now, rather than putting it into a fund and investing it, to be spent much later. The main alternative to this view is the view taken by the Patient Philanthropy Project, which invests money until such time that there is an unusually good opportunity.
I’m not sure that follows. We need X money this century and Y money that other century. Can we really expect to know which century will be more important or how much we’ll need, and how much we’ll be able to save in the future?
What I mean is I think it’s straightforward that we need to save some money for emergencies—but as there are no “older humanities” to learn from, it’s impossibly hard to forecast how much to save and when to spend it, and even then you only do it by always thinking bad things are still to come, so no time is the “most important”.
One major implication is that we should spend our altruistic and charity money now, rather than putting it into a fund and investing it, to be spent much later. The main alternative to this view is the view taken by the Patient Philanthropy Project, which invests money until such time that there is an unusually good opportunity.
I’m not sure that follows. We need X money this century and Y money that other century. Can we really expect to know which century will be more important or how much we’ll need, and how much we’ll be able to save in the future?
What I mean is I think it’s straightforward that we need to save some money for emergencies—but as there are no “older humanities” to learn from, it’s impossibly hard to forecast how much to save and when to spend it, and even then you only do it by always thinking bad things are still to come, so no time is the “most important”.