Brad West

Karma: 346

Brad West 22 Sep 2022 20:53 UTC
1 point
in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Making Trillions for Effective Charities through the Consumer Economy
You’re making the same mistake in understanding my proposition that a lot of my economics professors made that I am discussing charitable “bundling” (although after discussing with my professor from U of C, he understood better than what I was proposing). I must not be writing clearly.

Just instead of thinking of “donations” think dividends. Charities are simply occupying the same place that shareholders normally occupy. Thus, there is no reason it would be “taking a loss” any more than any other firm that has owners. The identity of an owner does not necessarily imply higher costs. Just as individuals trade ownership positions every day on the stock market, ownership could go to charities without jeopardizing performance.

Brad West 22 Sep 2022 19:24 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Bring legal cases to me, I will donate 100% of my cut of the fee to a charity of your choice
I know you were proposing it… I was paraphrasing it with agreement .

Yeah, it’s a great idea to come up with ways in which business resources can be used to serve worthy ends consistently with traditional shareholder and stakeholder interests.

Of course, I’d rather go much further and just get equity in the hands of charities than have to do all the skating around nonaligned stakeholders. I think if the relevant counterparties are aware of this fact, in many contexts it will, at the very least, be worth the acquisition cost. In some contexts, it could be revolutionary.

Brad West 19 Sep 2022 16:27 UTC
9 points
0 ∶ 0
on: APE: Activist / Altruistic Private Equity
You might be interested in some of what we’re doing with the Consumer Power Initiative.

One approach is by using company equity to cause the company to engage in pro-social or displacement antisocial corporate activity.

Another, perhaps complementary, approach is to advertisement pro-social use of profits (even 100%) to get an advantage with consumers. The below essay goes into it. Feel free to reach out for potential collaboration opportunities (pro-social economic behavior +pro-social use of profits and advertising of it) : Brad@consumerpowerinitiative.org

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WMiGwDoqEyswaE6hN/making-trillions-for-effective-charities-through-the

Brad West 18 Sep 2022 0:55 UTC
1 point
in reply to: tyleralterman’s comment on: Effective altruism in the garden of ends
I am a moral realist believing agents should act to create the greatest net well-being (utility).

Brad West 17 Sep 2022 7:40 UTC
2 points
in reply to: tyleralterman’s comment on: Effective altruism in the garden of ends
Yeah we probably do have a fundamental disagreement.

I think you were essentially correct when you were in the dark night. The weight you put to your own conscious experiences should not exceed the weight you put on that of other beings throughout space and time. Thus, the wonders and joys of your own conscious experience have intrinsic value, but it is not clear that satisfaction of these joys is the most effective use of the resources you as an agent have in an obvious sense (i.e. it seems like you can enable greater net experiences by privileging other entities).

I think there is a nonobvious reason to (seemingly) privilege yourself sometimes as an Effective Altruist in that concessions to your own psychological desires can facilitate your most effective operation and minimize likelihood that you will abandon or weaken your commitment to maximize well-being. This is what I mean by feeding the beast.

Your seeming reconciliation is value pluralism, which appears to, in this case, simply mean placing the value of some of your own conscious experiences in a superpriority above those of the conscious experiences of others. I would think your framing, an elevation of your own conscious experience, makes less sense than mine. Other beings’ conscious experiences are no less important than my own. I would make concessions which seemingly prioritize me, but ultimately, if I am acting morally, this preference is only illusory.

Brad West 16 Sep 2022 3:04 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 1
in reply to: MichaelDickens’s comment on: Glo, an ethical stablecoin: model, potential impact, and roadmap
There aren’t any safe investment instruments other than treasuries?

Brad West 15 Sep 2022 16:46 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jay Bailey’s comment on: Glo, an ethical stablecoin: model, potential impact, and roadmap
On the T-bond for operational expenses...I really hope not. It really messes with the purity of message, and if the impact is there, they should get support and not be forced to muddy the message for the general public. Just 100% of yield goes to Givedirectly. Then let the people who know the great work that GLO is doing support it.

Just like Givewell… If people thought their donation was supporting Givewell’s overhead, they would be less likely to support the Impact Fund.

Smart EAs should support effective institutions and enable those institutions to offer clearer propositions to the public.

Brad West 15 Sep 2022 4:18 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Jen Baik’s comment on: Guided Consumption: Funding Charities by Leveraging Consumer Sentiment in the Broader Economy
You’re quite mistaken… It’s almost directly related

Brad West 12 Sep 2022 13:00 UTC
1 point
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kirsten’s comment on: Bring legal cases to me, I will donate 100% of my cut of the fee to a charity of your choice
The Consumer Power Initiative will be providing a platform through its website under development for businesses that help charities. We wouldn’t want the EA forum to become flooded with stuff like this. If the business generated is supporting effective charities, we want people to know how they can do business in a way that helps them.

But this post here doesn’t simply generate money for effective charities if I get leads, it also provides a model that others can follow.

Brad West 12 Sep 2022 0:20 UTC
7 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Bring legal cases to me, I will donate 100% of my cut of the fee to a charity of your choice
I’d also like to mention that if any EAs are doing something like this, I’d like to know. The Consumer Power Initiative website is going to be done soon, and we’d like to list individuals and companies that are working for effective charities rather than themselves or traditional investors.

Brad West 11 Sep 2022 21:51 UTC
6 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Bring legal cases to me, I will donate 100% of my cut of the fee to a charity of your choice
Thanks David.

I have been interested in how altruists can use the economy to do good for a while. It would be really great if we could have lawyers, realtors, life insurance sales people, etc. using a commitment to direct fresh and commissions to charities to get a competitive advantage in generating business.

I like your corporate skills bake sale idea… Why not just have professionals do the work they’re good at and explicitly donate the fees generated? This model is an example of what I call Guided Consumption. I know you commented on one of my more recent posts laying out Guided Consumption from the perspective of various agents, and thanks for helping me clarify a point in my formulas. I like this earlier one a bit better as an introduction if you hadn’t had a chance to read it yet.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WMiGwDoqEyswaE6hN/making-trillions-for-effective-charities-through-the

As I can see you’re someone interested in using your economic insights toward altruistic ends, I’d really appreciate the opportunity to discuss the broader project of my nonprofit with you sometime. I think it would be well worth the time you direct towards it.

Brad@consumerpowerinitiative.org

Bring legal cases to me, I will donate 100% of my cut of the fee to a charity of your choice

Brad West11 Sep 2022 15:49 UTC

44 points

7 comments1 min readEA link

Brad West 11 Sep 2022 15:04 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Philip Windred’s comment on: Should GiveWell still recommend GiveDirectly?
My nonprofit, the Consumer Power Initiative, has a plan to leverage consumer sentiment to direct a significant portion of our global economy to effective charities. This might create the scenario where we’ve plucked the lower hanging fruit than Givedirectly.

I actuality suspect that Givedirectly would become more efficient an judicious with its resources with scaling, while the extent of need would allow it to absorb hundreds of billions annually without large utility losses.

To learn more about my project, here’s my most recent newsletter.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jXeT6SHoLoaXfkoT_7YCSgpMGHTiDwFU/view?usp=drivesdk

Brad West 1 Sep 2022 6:37 UTC
14 points
on: Effective altruism in the garden of ends
Loved reading about your journey...

I think a lot of EAs, including myself, struggle with how to integrate the psychological features that propel, enrich, stifle, or endanger our capacities as moral agents. Although, upon reflection, we are firmly committed to privileging net well-being of conscious entities across space-time, we are firmly aware that this commitment is imperiled by the beasts within us hungering for other ends.

Like many of us, you determined that acknowledging and feeding those beasts was correct and appropriate… One’s health is indispensable to being able to do good. Yet what the beast most craved was to be regarded with dignity and respect. The delights and adventures were bereft of their magic to you if you just considered them extrinsically valuable.

The proper antidote seems self-deception… Allow yourself to be lost in the greatness of life as an intrinsic value in the moment while charting your broader path in moments of reflection...

I agree with you that the question of how to integrate our broader humanity into our personal moral calculuses is most critical. It is also immensely difficult: the differentiation between a rational sacrifice to our beasts in the name of psychological health and consequently, greater good, and an excuse to indulge ourselves and behave badly when such choices are not warranted is very hard. I personally participate in the torture of animals by eating meat without regard for its provenance. Given my current circumstance, I think this abomination rational sacrifice to my beasts, but I sincerely doubt many vegans would agree. (I think that with the work I’m currently doing, taxing myself psychologically by a lifestyle change to veganism would be net negative EV).

The broader question of how to ethically and responsibly integrate our own flaws into ethical decisionmaking is fascinating, necessary, and fraught with peril.

Brad West 31 Aug 2022 1:10 UTC
8 points
on: Be More Succinct
I think the executive summary/conciseness points have been beaten to death. What needs discussion is systems within the EA community that get topics and discussions to the audiences that need to read them for high EV.

Brad West 30 Aug 2022 14:38 UTC
1 point
on: We are still in triage
It is very hard to deal with the reality of suffering that we must tolerate given resource limitations. Seeing the big picture allows us to do the most good, but also exposes us to countless nightmares we have to walk away from.

This is why we also need to be thinking about how to expand the resources we can direct to effective charities… My nonprofit, the Consumer Power Initiative, is looking to leverage the general economy to benefit effective charities. With global net profits in the trillions, I believe we can get a larger piece of the global pie working for well-being and justice so that there are far less nightmares we need to tolerate.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out our most recent newsletter, linked below, and feel free to reach out to me at Brad@consumerpowerinitiative.org

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jXeT6SHoLoaXfkoT_7YCSgpMGHTiDwFU/view?usp=drivesdk

Brad West 29 Aug 2022 21:04 UTC
10 points
in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Should GiveWell still recommend GiveDirectly?
I suppose the operative question would be what is the total funding capacity for all programs that are demonstrably more cost-effective than Givedirectly? Would it be in the tens of billions? Hundreds of billions? Trillions?

Direct cash transfers to the global poor could likely absorb in the trillions annually and still be very cost effective. But if there’s no risk of exhausting the lower hanging fruit any time soon, I suppose it is not a concern.

Brad West 29 Aug 2022 14:14 UTC
7 points
on: Should GiveWell still recommend GiveDirectly?
There are definitely worlds where effective charities gain much more money, in which case it is critical that outlets with extremely deep uses for funding like Givedirectly will be critical.

For instance, if the Guided Consumption project of the Consumer Power Initiative and BOAS takes off, there may be tens or hundreds of billions of dollars that we need to make sure are directed towards effective global health and development and animal welfare charities. If you’re interested in learning more about that:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WMiGwDoqEyswaE6hN/making-trillions-for-effective-charities-through-the

Brad West 22 Aug 2022 23:03 UTC
7 points
on: I’m interviewing Marcus Davis, co-founder of Rethink Priorities — what should I ask him?
What efforts are being made to strengthen a pipeline between potentially extremely high EV ideas and enabling cause exploration for further discovery? Grant applications are an often unhelpful tool to facilitate such discovery because of the wide variety of factors that could kill grant proposals other than underlying merit of an idea. Cultivation upstream in the idea development community could do a lot to facilitate exploration, which is what Rethink Priorities is all about.

Brad West 19 Aug 2022 3:45 UTC
8 points
in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Guided Consumption Theory: A Virtuous Dance between Altruistic Agents, Economic Discriminators, and Opportunistic Helpers
Hi David,

F(C) would be the value of all outstanding shares of a firm whose equity was held by charities. If some of small portion was available to the public, this could be calculated by looking to recent stock prices and multiplying it by the total number of outstanding shares. One way of looking at this is the current cash value of the future stream of income. What I am describing here is market capitalization.

P is the monetary value of the benefits of being a Guiding Producer rather than a traditional firm. As this paper describes, consumers would prefer popular charities benefit from their purchases rather than traditional investors. This can transfer to increased market share, which translates to increased market cap. The paper describes various other manners in which Guiding Producers may be preferentially treated by other economic actors. BOAS shows examples of this with better commissions from brands selling on its site, consultants that work for free rather than charge a couple hundred dollars an hour, etc. So P is the delta in market cap between a firm with nearly total equity held by charity (and advertising this fact) and the same firm with just normal private equity.

Essentially, equity being held almost wholly by a popular charity(s) confers an advantage without a corresponding disadvantage. The Consumer Power Initiative is working to maximize the effect of this advantage by augmenting public awareness and discovering the most advantageous contexts for these companies.

Is this helpful in clarifying for you?

EDIT: I edited the main post to clarify that F(C) and F(K) refer to market capitalization.

Brad West

Bring le­gal cases to me, I will donate 100% of my cut of the fee to a char­ity of your choice

Bring legal cases to me, I will donate 100% of my cut of the fee to a charity of your choice