One frame Iâve found very helpful for thinking about EA is that, deep down, weâre not just answering one question (âwhatâs the best thing to do?â) but answering two questions. The first is âwhat should we value?â and the second is âhow can we get more of what we value?â (This is my personal view, and I certainly donât speak for anyone else in the community.)
Hence, thereâs nothing âoffâ about someone pursuing arts funding for their community theater, even if no lives are saved in the process; if someone really values the production of theater in their community, Iâm not going to tell them theyâve chosen wrong. (Though I might suggest they try to write down all the different things they value, so that they can understand the full âportfolioâ of what they care about.) But if there are two community theaters in town, and one of them takes twice as much money to put on a show for half as many people, the other theater seems like a better place to fund.
The same goes for the arts in general: If oneâs real goal is to fund âmore artâ or âbetter artâ, there are thousands of charities they could consider, and they can use EA methods to whittle down that list until they find options that will very effectively use their money to put more/âbetter art into the world. Just as different health interventions are more or less efficient, we would expect different arts charities to be more or less efficient.
If someone values both âsaving livesâ and âpromoting the artsâ, and wants to support both areas, one common suggestion within EA is to save some donation money for âwarm fuzziesâ, which are causes that make you feel good to support. This could be art; for me, personally, itâs donating to people who create online fiction I enjoy (through Patreon) and to websites that help to spread and preserve knowledge (Sci-Hub, the Internet Archive). This accounts for something like 10% of my charitable spending in a given year. Many other EAs do something similar.
One frame Iâve found very helpful for thinking about EA is that, deep down, weâre not just answering one question (âwhatâs the best thing to do?â) but answering two questions. The first is âwhat should we value?â and the second is âhow can we get more of what we value?â (This is my personal view, and I certainly donât speak for anyone else in the community.)
Hence, thereâs nothing âoffâ about someone pursuing arts funding for their community theater, even if no lives are saved in the process; if someone really values the production of theater in their community, Iâm not going to tell them theyâve chosen wrong. (Though I might suggest they try to write down all the different things they value, so that they can understand the full âportfolioâ of what they care about.) But if there are two community theaters in town, and one of them takes twice as much money to put on a show for half as many people, the other theater seems like a better place to fund.
The same goes for the arts in general: If oneâs real goal is to fund âmore artâ or âbetter artâ, there are thousands of charities they could consider, and they can use EA methods to whittle down that list until they find options that will very effectively use their money to put more/âbetter art into the world. Just as different health interventions are more or less efficient, we would expect different arts charities to be more or less efficient.
If someone values both âsaving livesâ and âpromoting the artsâ, and wants to support both areas, one common suggestion within EA is to save some donation money for âwarm fuzziesâ, which are causes that make you feel good to support. This could be art; for me, personally, itâs donating to people who create online fiction I enjoy (through Patreon) and to websites that help to spread and preserve knowledge (Sci-Hub, the Internet Archive). This accounts for something like 10% of my charitable spending in a given year. Many other EAs do something similar.