I have trouble imagining this working. I would expect that people interested in EA would generally be behind the same sort of political candidates. I’m not sure how easily you could pursuade someone not already interested in EA in the benefit of this scheme. The most generous of my coworkers seem to think of donating as something you just do, rather than an effort to improve the world. (I once had someone seriously try to convince me to donate to an organization that would help send people like [specific disabled veteran] to a water park.) I would expect most people to see campaign donation as a sort of personal support, and not get behind arguments about usefulness and such. Who exactly would you be targetting with this?
I suppose I have a higher credence in a wide audience finding this really appealing. By spending X dollars, you’re canceling out X dollars of the other side while simultaneously sending 2*X dollars to an actual charity.
Nobody likes the negative ads in the US—plenty of people donate in order to ‘prevent the other side from winning’ more than supporting their own candidate.
I have trouble imagining this working. I would expect that people interested in EA would generally be behind the same sort of political candidates. I’m not sure how easily you could pursuade someone not already interested in EA in the benefit of this scheme. The most generous of my coworkers seem to think of donating as something you just do, rather than an effort to improve the world. (I once had someone seriously try to convince me to donate to an organization that would help send people like [specific disabled veteran] to a water park.) I would expect most people to see campaign donation as a sort of personal support, and not get behind arguments about usefulness and such. Who exactly would you be targetting with this?
I envision this targeting the general public.
I suppose I have a higher credence in a wide audience finding this really appealing. By spending X dollars, you’re canceling out X dollars of the other side while simultaneously sending 2*X dollars to an actual charity.
Nobody likes the negative ads in the US—plenty of people donate in order to ‘prevent the other side from winning’ more than supporting their own candidate.