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multifoliaterose comments on Public Choice and the Altruist's Burden - Less Wrong
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My position is not that the two incentives line up perfectly. My post was suggesting the possibility that at the margin, most Americans would be happier if they donated noticeably more or donated noticeably better.
I was also thinking at the margin. There are some margins where what helps the self and what helps social utility conflict, and some where they line up or are basically independent. At least in our demographic (well-educated people in OECD countries), I think that most people are at a point where giving more to effective non-weird charity would at least not be a noticeable decline for the self (and for some people it would be an improvement). There's likely to be more conflict for large increases in giving or for weird charities, but Roko's post seems to treat the conflict between self & social utility as more fundamental than that.
The disagreement is easily testable, it just requires that enough people test multifoliaterose's suggestions. He says that he himself became happier by donating more. Do you think he isn't telling the truth?
Of course, the disagreement will not be tested in practice, because no one or very few will be willing to test his suggestion, seeing that such a test would be quite expensive.
Do you find my suggestion that such a test would be worth it for individual prospective donors to perform (based on expected returns considerations) unconvincing?
I have no doubt it would be worth it. In fact, I expect you are right. Even giving a beggar $20 instead of $1 increased my happiness significantly. But due to people's selfishness, in general they will not be willing to test it even if the expected return is positive.