This makes a lot of sense to me. Personally I’m trying to use my career to work on longtermism, but focusing my donations on global poverty. A few reasons, similar to what you outlined above:
I don’t want to place all my bets on longtermism. I’m sufficiently skeptical of arguments about AI risk, and sufficiently averse to pinning all my personal impact on a low-probability high-EV cause area, that I’d like to do some neartermist good with my life. Also, this.
Comparatively speaking, longtermism needs more people and global poverty needs more cash. GiveWell has maintained their bar for funding as “8x better than GiveDirectly”, and is delaying grants that would not meet that bar because they expect to find more impactful opportunities over the next few years. Meanwhile longtermists seem to have lowered the bar to funding significantly, with funding readily available for any individuals interested in working on or towards impactful longtermist projects. (Perhaps the expected value of longtermist giving still looks good because the scale is so much bigger, but getting a global poverty grant seems to require a much more established organization with a proven track record of success.)
The best pitch for EA in my experience is the opportunity to reliably save lives by donating to global poverty charities. When I tell people about EA, I want to be able to tell them that I do the thing I’m recommending. (Though, maybe I should be learning to pitch x-risk instead.
On the whole, it seems reasonable to me for somebody to donate to neartermist causes despite the fact that they believe in the longtermist argument. This is particularly true for people who do or will work directly on longtermism and would like to diversify their opportunities for impact.
I came to say the same thing. I was (not that long ago) working on longtermist stuff and donating to neartermist stuff (animal welfare). I think this is not uncommon among people I know.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Personally I’m trying to use my career to work on longtermism, but focusing my donations on global poverty. A few reasons, similar to what you outlined above:
I don’t want to place all my bets on longtermism. I’m sufficiently skeptical of arguments about AI risk, and sufficiently averse to pinning all my personal impact on a low-probability high-EV cause area, that I’d like to do some neartermist good with my life. Also, this.
Comparatively speaking, longtermism needs more people and global poverty needs more cash. GiveWell has maintained their bar for funding as “8x better than GiveDirectly”, and is delaying grants that would not meet that bar because they expect to find more impactful opportunities over the next few years. Meanwhile longtermists seem to have lowered the bar to funding significantly, with funding readily available for any individuals interested in working on or towards impactful longtermist projects. (Perhaps the expected value of longtermist giving still looks good because the scale is so much bigger, but getting a global poverty grant seems to require a much more established organization with a proven track record of success.)
The best pitch for EA in my experience is the opportunity to reliably save lives by donating to global poverty charities. When I tell people about EA, I want to be able to tell them that I do the thing I’m recommending. (Though, maybe I should be learning to pitch x-risk instead.
On the whole, it seems reasonable to me for somebody to donate to neartermist causes despite the fact that they believe in the longtermist argument. This is particularly true for people who do or will work directly on longtermism and would like to diversify their opportunities for impact.
I came to say the same thing. I was (not that long ago) working on longtermist stuff and donating to neartermist stuff (animal welfare). I think this is not uncommon among people I know.