2) I agree you should consider your future income, the percentage should be calculated as a percentage of current assets + NPV of future income.
1) I agree the approach of “work out if the community is above or below the optimum level of investing vs. saving, and then either donate everything, or save everything” makes a lot of sense for small donors. I’d feel pretty happy if someone wanted to try do that. (Another factor is that it could be a good division of labour for some to specialise in giving soon and some specialise in investing.)
But I feel a bit unsure about recommending it.
One issue is that it assumes you’re pretty coordinated with the rest of the community, which might not be true, especially of new people.
It’s very hard to know what the optimal level is for the community as a whole should be, and if the person gets it wrong, then they might donate everything, which is irreversible. The advice of “give about 4% per year” seems less likely to be drastically wrong for them.
From a community pov, ‘everyone donate what they think they ideal percentage should be’ vs. ‘donate all or nothing depending on your best guess at whether above or below the optimum’ would both end up converging to the ideal percentage donated.
Donating more gradually means you can take advantage of learning (and as you say, radical worldview shifts).
It also lets you self-insure if your personal circumstances end up worse than you expected.
PS A third approach would be more bottom up: do a search for the best thing you can donate to right now, then compare it to your best investment, and try to think about which is better.
Thanks so much for the fast and detailed response!
Sorry I should be clearer. Ben Wilder probably shouldn’t donate all of his money this year. EA is a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s good to take advantage of (eg) learning more and worldview shifts. I just don’t think optimal philanthropic timing is the main consideration here.
PS A third approach would be more bottom up: do a search for the best thing you can donate to right now, then compare it to your best investment, and try to think about which is better.
Agreed, I think there’s a lot to recommend for this approach, including but not limited to if this search works out well, relevant information can be passed along to the rest of this community.
2) I agree you should consider your future income, the percentage should be calculated as a percentage of current assets + NPV of future income.
1) I agree the approach of “work out if the community is above or below the optimum level of investing vs. saving, and then either donate everything, or save everything” makes a lot of sense for small donors. I’d feel pretty happy if someone wanted to try do that. (Another factor is that it could be a good division of labour for some to specialise in giving soon and some specialise in investing.)
But I feel a bit unsure about recommending it.
One issue is that it assumes you’re pretty coordinated with the rest of the community, which might not be true, especially of new people.
It’s very hard to know what the optimal level is for the community as a whole should be, and if the person gets it wrong, then they might donate everything, which is irreversible. The advice of “give about 4% per year” seems less likely to be drastically wrong for them.
From a community pov, ‘everyone donate what they think they ideal percentage should be’ vs. ‘donate all or nothing depending on your best guess at whether above or below the optimum’ would both end up converging to the ideal percentage donated.
Donating more gradually means you can take advantage of learning (and as you say, radical worldview shifts).
It also lets you self-insure if your personal circumstances end up worse than you expected.
PS A third approach would be more bottom up: do a search for the best thing you can donate to right now, then compare it to your best investment, and try to think about which is better.
Thanks so much for the fast and detailed response!
Sorry I should be clearer. Ben Wilder probably shouldn’t donate all of his money this year. EA is a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s good to take advantage of (eg) learning more and worldview shifts. I just don’t think optimal philanthropic timing is the main consideration here.
Agreed, I think there’s a lot to recommend for this approach, including but not limited to if this search works out well, relevant information can be passed along to the rest of this community.