I disagree voted, because I don’t think it is a terrible policy / think it is a hard problem and they’ve solved it in probably the most reasonable way.
I think that it probably isn’t perfect and has a lot of issues, but pledged donations are counterfactual (no one would donate otherwise), while doing a direct work role is not as clearly counterfactual (the organization would usually probably hire someone else, but maybe they’d be less good than you, etc). I think that feels messy to litigate properly—in some cases doing direct work is way better than the counterfactual, but in others it might not be obvious, etc.
It just doesn’t seem clear cut how to resolve, and I think the explicit line of “you give away money that would otherwise be yours at this particular moment” seems like a fine way to slice it. If the pledge was “do the most good” pledge, I might agree, but then lots of other things besides taking a lower paying job or giving away money might count.
I disagree voted, because I don’t think it is a terrible policy / think it is a hard problem and they’ve solved it in probably the most reasonable way.
I think that it probably isn’t perfect and has a lot of issues, but pledged donations are counterfactual (no one would donate otherwise), while doing a direct work role is not as clearly counterfactual (the organization would usually probably hire someone else, but maybe they’d be less good than you, etc). I think that feels messy to litigate properly—in some cases doing direct work is way better than the counterfactual, but in others it might not be obvious, etc.
It just doesn’t seem clear cut how to resolve, and I think the explicit line of “you give away money that would otherwise be yours at this particular moment” seems like a fine way to slice it. If the pledge was “do the most good” pledge, I might agree, but then lots of other things besides taking a lower paying job or giving away money might count.