I feel like the spirit of early EA and Giving What We Can (and Christianity, TBH) was pushing back on this Occupy mindset of “We are the 99%.” In other words, if you’re part of the global elite (or even the 50%?), rather than focusing your energy on attacking people even more privileged than you, focus on taking responsibility for your own privilege and what you personally can give first.
I think it’s even more important to promote this idea today as I get the sense that the Western world is getting even angrier and adopting even more of a victim mindset, so I personally would feel like we’ve lost something valuable if lots of EAs today have the view that “giving 10% is [not] feasible for the median American in their twenties.”
I wonder if Jack would be equally happy with the weaker claim that giving 10% is not advisable for the median American in their twenties. I’m not sure whether I’d agree even with that but wm it seems more plausible to me than claiming it’s not feasible.
And giving 10% could be not advisible (in the sense that it may not be the best possible use of the median 20s person’s funds) but superior to their counterfactual use of the funds.
Don’t really feel like it’s an either/or… It can both the case that we should use political processes to require the extremely wealthy to do more to solve world problems AND that we less wealthy, but still comfortable, in global terms, are morally required to do more. After all, even 10% of 30k is saving 6 lives in a decade at 5k/life and would result in mere struggle for one in the developed world.
I feel like the spirit of early EA and Giving What We Can (and Christianity, TBH) was pushing back on this Occupy mindset of “We are the 99%.” In other words, if you’re part of the global elite (or even the 50%?), rather than focusing your energy on attacking people even more privileged than you, focus on taking responsibility for your own privilege and what you personally can give first.
I think it’s even more important to promote this idea today as I get the sense that the Western world is getting even angrier and adopting even more of a victim mindset, so I personally would feel like we’ve lost something valuable if lots of EAs today have the view that “giving 10% is [not] feasible for the median American in their twenties.”
I wonder if Jack would be equally happy with the weaker claim that giving 10% is not advisable for the median American in their twenties. I’m not sure whether I’d agree even with that but wm it seems more plausible to me than claiming it’s not feasible.
And giving 10% could be not advisible (in the sense that it may not be the best possible use of the median 20s person’s funds) but superior to their counterfactual use of the funds.
Yes, this is more what I meant (although not sure this defuses the criticisms/disagreement)
Don’t really feel like it’s an either/or… It can both the case that we should use political processes to require the extremely wealthy to do more to solve world problems AND that we less wealthy, but still comfortable, in global terms, are morally required to do more. After all, even 10% of 30k is saving 6 lives in a decade at 5k/life and would result in mere struggle for one in the developed world.