Unnamed comments on A Rational Altruist Punch in The Stomach - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Neotenic 01 April 2013 12:42AM

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Comment author: Unnamed 01 April 2013 06:29:04PM 10 points [-]

Do you expect your investment to grow as a fraction of total wealth (rather than just keeping pace with overall economic growth)? If yes: How high a proportion of total wealth do you expect it to become?

Thought experiment: Suppose that a large fraction of the wealth on Earth was held by a "charitable trust" which was started 12,000 years ago, had spent the intervening time solely managing its wealth (not doing anything charitable), and now was seeking to use its resources for altruistic purposes (following the guidelines set forth by the person who gave it instructions 12,000 years ago). Would that be better than the status quo, or worse? By how much?

Second thought experiment: Suppose that a large fraction of the wealth on Earth was held by a "charitable trust" which was started 11,000 years ago, had spent the intervening time solely managing its wealth (not doing anything charitable), and was under strict instructions to spend the next 1,000 years solely managing its wealth (not doing anything charitable) before it finally turned to altruistic purposes. Would that be better than the status quo, or worse? By how much?