topynate comments on Tallinn-Evans $125,000 Singularity Challenge - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 26 December 2010 11:21AM

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Comment author: David_Gerard 27 December 2010 07:58:06PM -1 points [-]

Yes, I'm sure the charity has such a page. I am intimately familiar with how splitting donations into fine slivers is very much in the interests of all charities except the very largest; I was speaking of putative benefit to the donors.

Comment author: topynate 27 December 2010 10:09:02PM *  8 points [-]

Actions which increase utility but do not maximise it aren't "pointless". If you have two charities to choose from, £100 to spend, and you get a constant 2 utilons/£ for charity A and 1 utilon/£ for charity B, you still get a utilon for each pound you donate to B, even if to get 200 utilons you should donate £100 to A. It's just the wrong word to apply to the action, even assuming that someone who says he's donated a small amount is also saying that he's donated a small proportion of his charitable budget (which it turns out wasn't true in this case).