I think what I was going for is: say someone is day trading and making tens of millions of $/year. It would be pretty unreasonable to expect them to donate 98%, especially because time-money tradeoffs mean they can probably donate more if donating only 90%.
This is not necessarily equivalent to a situation where someone is producing tens of millions of research value per year, but it’s similar in a few respects:
Keeping all the value for themself isn’t on the table for an altruist
Barring optics, taxes, etc. the impact calculation is similar
Pay provides incentives and a signal of value in both cases
Deviating from the optimum is deadweight loss
I don’t think salary norms in these circumstances should be identical, but there’s a sense in which having completely unrelated salary norms for each case bothers me. It’s a wrong price signal, like a $1000 bottle of wine that tastes identical to $20 wine, or a Soviet supermarket filled with empty shelves due to price controls.
By 1−actual salarymax possible salary I’m probably “essentially donating” only around 94%, though it does get closer to 99% if you count equity from possible startups.
I agree that this is more accurate.
I think what I was going for is: say someone is day trading and making tens of millions of $/year. It would be pretty unreasonable to expect them to donate 98%, especially because time-money tradeoffs mean they can probably donate more if donating only 90%.
This is not necessarily equivalent to a situation where someone is producing tens of millions of research value per year, but it’s similar in a few respects:
Keeping all the value for themself isn’t on the table for an altruist
Barring optics, taxes, etc. the impact calculation is similar
Pay provides incentives and a signal of value in both cases
Deviating from the optimum is deadweight loss
I don’t think salary norms in these circumstances should be identical, but there’s a sense in which having completely unrelated salary norms for each case bothers me. It’s a wrong price signal, like a $1000 bottle of wine that tastes identical to $20 wine, or a Soviet supermarket filled with empty shelves due to price controls.
By 1−actual salarymax possible salary I’m probably “essentially donating” only around 94%, though it does get closer to 99% if you count equity from possible startups.