Spencer is the Community Engagement Coordinator at Giving What We Can. She helps people around the world learn how to make significant, effective giving a sustainable part of their lives with the đ¸ 10% Pledge.
Spencer studied psychology and mathematics at University of Waterloo, Canada. In 2023, she published Probability and intentional action in Cognitive Psychology based on her undergraduate research project.
Spencer figured that if she had been comfortable enough growing up on government assistance, she would be even more comfortable on an entry-level salaryâshe found out about effective giving when she wanted to donate part of her first full-time paycheque effectively, and then Googled âmost effective charities.â It just felt right.
Outside of work, she also advises philanthropists on effective giving through her solopreneur project, Phare Philanthropy. Spencer enjoys volunteering in her local Vancouver community, including with her lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. She is always covered in fur from her two rescue cats.
Thanks Matt!
My estimate was just one estimate. I could have included it in the table but when I did the table it seemed like such an outlier, and done with a totally different method as well, perhaps useful for a different purpose⌠It might be worth adding it into the table? Not sure.
Interesting consideration! If we expect humanity to at one point technologize the LS, and extinction prevents that, donât we still lose all those lives? It would not eradicate all life if there were aliens, but still the same amount of life in total. (Iâm not endorsing any one prediction for how large the future will be.) My formulas here donât quantify how much worse it is to lose 100% of life than 99% of life.
Sure, you could set your threshold differently depending on your purpose. I could have made this clearer!
Exactly as you say, comparing across cause areas, you might want to keep the cost youâre willing to pay for an outcome (a life) consistent.
If youâve decided on a worldview diversification strategy that gives you separate buckets for different cause areas (e.g. by credence instead of by stakes), then youâd want to set your threshold separately for different cause areas, and use each threshold to compare within a cause area. If you set a threshold for what youâre willing to pay for a life within longtermist interventions, and fewer funding opportunities live up to that compared to the amount of money you have available, you can save some of your money in that bucket and donate it later, in the hopes that new opportunities that meet your threshold can arise. For an example of giving later based on a threshold, Open Philanthropy wants to give money each year to projects that are more cost-effective than what they will spend their âlast dollarâ on.
Thanks, me too!