The problem is that you are claiming that, say, if I increase my donations from 10% to 50%, I will actually turn off no less than four people (on average) who would have donated 10% each! Does that seem obvious to you? It doesn’t seem obvious to me, either in this specific example or in other examples with other numbers.
I would like to make clear that I am not making this claim. Your numbers here are correct; I agree that if you increase your donations from 10% to 50%, it does not seem likely that that would turn off no less than four people who would have donated 10% each.
However, I still think my intended claim stands. It is my belief that the people who do less are not as vocal as the people who do more. I do not think the people who do more should instead do less; rather, I think that the people who do less should become more vocal.
This isn’t so much a problem with percentage of income donations, which is why I (perhaps incorrectly) said that that paragraph should be offensive to no one. But it is a problem when it comes to inefficient behaviors, like people who have hobbies that actually cost money, or people who don’t maximize every moment of their day.
There is an unstated premise here that I should have made explicit. I’m talking only about those individuals who are already doing the maximum that they are going to do. If someone could plausibly be talked into upping their percentage from 10% to 50%, then they probably should. But if they are already donating their maximum, my argument is that they should be more vocal about their contribution level within the community. (Again, I don’t think contribution level vocality is an issue; but I do think that normal sleeping/eating/playing pattern vocality is an issue in the EA community.)
You also have to throw in the countervailing effects of people being less encouraged to donate more. If me donating only 10% reduces the likelihood of another 10%er moving up to 50%, then I’ve just done twice as much harm. Don’t forget that since the start of Effective Altruism, the idea of donating large amounts of money has given it plenty of attention and the interest of key individuals.
This is a very good point. But, again, I’m not claiming that those who perform what I’m calling supererogatory actions should be more quiet; I’m merely claiming that the less efficient of us should be more vocal. We are still going to have people in the community who perform superhuman feats (you know who you are), and they are still going to get attention/press and be “looked up to”. My claim is that, alongside this, we should also have room for the less efficient of us (which we all agree with), and that the less efficient should be a vocal portion of the EA community, to make the barrier to entry for new EAs feel that much lower (which is the part of my claim that we disagree on).
I am not claiming that we need to donate less or sleep more or spend more money on video games. What I’m instead saying is that, for those of us who are going to spend that money on video games regardless, and those who will sleep 9 hours regardless, and those who just aren’t going to donate over 10%, we should not be embarrassed by these things and keep them quiet. If we really aren’t going to be more effective in terms of time, money, attention, energy, or whatever, then we can at least create more utility for the cause by being vocal and thereby making it easier for new recruits to come into the fold.
I think that setting a lower-effort norm can have dangerous long term consequences for internal culture. There’s something that makes effective altruism different from evangelical religious groups and small political parties and community volunteer groups, and that is the fact that EAs are consistently willing to go above and beyond in having a footprint.
This critique is a strong one, and I don’t have a proper reply to it other than that I’m thinking about what you’ve said. If you’re right, then this consideration would overwhelm all of the other arguments I’ve made in this thread. My suspicion is that you are wrong, but I don’t have data to support this beyond my intuition.
And if we want to spread the message to new people, instead of passively relying on being interesting and cool people, it’s much more effective to actually go out there and actively build the movement.
We agree on this point. Again, the unstated premise I had was that these people would not be doing more, so they could at least help by being more vocal. But obviously if they instead actually recruited others, that would be far better.
I would like to make clear that I am not making this claim. Your numbers here are correct; I agree that if you increase your donations from 10% to 50%, it does not seem likely that that would turn off no less than four people who would have donated 10% each.
However, I still think my intended claim stands. It is my belief that the people who do less are not as vocal as the people who do more. I do not think the people who do more should instead do less; rather, I think that the people who do less should become more vocal.
This isn’t so much a problem with percentage of income donations, which is why I (perhaps incorrectly) said that that paragraph should be offensive to no one. But it is a problem when it comes to inefficient behaviors, like people who have hobbies that actually cost money, or people who don’t maximize every moment of their day.
There is an unstated premise here that I should have made explicit. I’m talking only about those individuals who are already doing the maximum that they are going to do. If someone could plausibly be talked into upping their percentage from 10% to 50%, then they probably should. But if they are already donating their maximum, my argument is that they should be more vocal about their contribution level within the community. (Again, I don’t think contribution level vocality is an issue; but I do think that normal sleeping/eating/playing pattern vocality is an issue in the EA community.)
This is a very good point. But, again, I’m not claiming that those who perform what I’m calling supererogatory actions should be more quiet; I’m merely claiming that the less efficient of us should be more vocal. We are still going to have people in the community who perform superhuman feats (you know who you are), and they are still going to get attention/press and be “looked up to”. My claim is that, alongside this, we should also have room for the less efficient of us (which we all agree with), and that the less efficient should be a vocal portion of the EA community, to make the barrier to entry for new EAs feel that much lower (which is the part of my claim that we disagree on).
I am not claiming that we need to donate less or sleep more or spend more money on video games. What I’m instead saying is that, for those of us who are going to spend that money on video games regardless, and those who will sleep 9 hours regardless, and those who just aren’t going to donate over 10%, we should not be embarrassed by these things and keep them quiet. If we really aren’t going to be more effective in terms of time, money, attention, energy, or whatever, then we can at least create more utility for the cause by being vocal and thereby making it easier for new recruits to come into the fold.
This critique is a strong one, and I don’t have a proper reply to it other than that I’m thinking about what you’ve said. If you’re right, then this consideration would overwhelm all of the other arguments I’ve made in this thread. My suspicion is that you are wrong, but I don’t have data to support this beyond my intuition.
We agree on this point. Again, the unstated premise I had was that these people would not be doing more, so they could at least help by being more vocal. But obviously if they instead actually recruited others, that would be far better.