Khoth comments on A Mathematical Explanation of Why Charity Donations Shouldn't Be Diversified - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 20 September 2012 11:03AM

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Comment author: Khoth 20 September 2012 03:14:18PM *  21 points [-]

Given that the standard argument for diversification is to avoid risk, an argument based on a model which assumes no risk isn't going to be convincing. You need a model which does assume risk, and actually show that the risk makes no difference, rather than assuming it out at the beginning.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 21 September 2012 01:05:33PM 4 points [-]

Diversification makes sense in a preservation context, where any asset you have could devalue by a near-arbitrary factor - and then it only matters because the utility of going near 0 assets is really really negative, so you try to steer around that by not letting one catastrophe sink you.

When handing out goodies, there is no such extreme penalty for it ending up worthless. It would be bad, but since it's only linearly bad, that's taken into account fully by taking the expected return.