lukeprog comments on 2012 Winter Fundraiser for the Singularity Institute - Less Wrong

31 Post author: lukeprog 06 December 2012 10:41PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 19 December 2012 04:16:45AM *  8 points [-]

Why...?

Oh, right...

Basically, it's because I think both organizations Do Great Good with marginal dollars at this time, but the world is too uncertain to tell whether marginal dollars do more good at CFAR or SI. (X-risk reducers confused by this statement probably have a lower estimate of CFAR's impact on x-risk reduction than I do.) For normal humans who make giving decisions mostly by emotion, giving to the one they're most excited about should cause them to give the maximum amount they're going to give. For weird humans who make giving decisions mostly by multiplication, well, they've already translated "whichever organization you're most excited to support" into "whichever organization maximizes my expected utility [at least, with reference to the utility function which represents my philanthropic goals]."