SilasBarta 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: SilasBarta 20 September 2012 04:27:54PM 9 points [-]

The linked article (and, to an extent, this one) makes 2 critical assumptions that break their relevance.

  • That quantity of contributors is irrelevant (i.e., that contributions of $X matter the same if the money comes from 1 or 2, 3... people). As EY has noted in discussion of fundraising for SIAI, it affects your tax status if your contributions come mostly from a few donors vs several. Similarly, note how fundraising organizations (and political candidates) gain credibility from saying that "X% of our donations came from people giving less than $Y!".
  • That your decision is independent of others' ("what if everyone did it?" effects): a world of people convinced by these arguments would be dominated by (political) lizards, since "my vote wouldn't make a difference".
Comment author: [deleted] 20 September 2012 08:17:32PM *  0 points [-]

What would you say to someone who told you that the second assumption is reasonable because most of humanity is irrational?

(Not exactly a hypothetical -- someone did attempt this rebuttal recently.)

Comment author: SilasBarta 20 September 2012 09:16:28PM 1 point [-]

Humanity is run by lizards?

Comment author: thomblake 20 September 2012 06:01:30PM 0 points [-]

I don't think the argument is parallel. Instead, consider:

If you're giving to charity anyway, give to the charity that has the highest expected impact. If you're voting anyway, vote for the candidate with the highest expected impact.

Here, you have optimal philanthropy plus voting against lizards.

Comment author: SilasBarta 20 September 2012 06:22:47PM 0 points [-]

But there is no analog to splitting up your vote, and to the extent that there can be (say, when you get multiple votes in an election to fill multiple co-equal seats on a council, and you can apply more than one of your votes to the same candidate), and several candidates have similar merit, the same arguments for charity splitting apply.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 September 2012 07:11:30PM 3 points [-]

But there is no analog to splitting up your vote

Sure (to the extent that we are considering the effects of “what if everyone used the algorithm I'm using”): you vote for the Greens with probability p and for the Blues with probability 1 - p.

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