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MaxwellFritz comments on Earning to Give vs. Altruistic Career Choice Revisited - Less Wrong
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Comments (154)
Thanks for the article, it's a position I've been wanting to see taken.
I think you've made a good defensive case that people should stay squishy in their conviction about earning-to-give being the way to go. I'm convinced about some of the overextensions of the earning-to-give argument, and the value of making further adjustments based on considerations like counterexamples, illusory superiority bias, etc.
I'm not at all convinced, though, in the conclusion that earning to give is reasonably likely to have less impact. There seems to be a jump from "here are reasons to be cautious/skeptical of earning-to-give as optimal" to the bolded thesis. There are lots of good reasons to be cautious/skeptical of going the direct route, as well. I'd be curious to read your analysis of what you think the most compelling reasons to be skeptical of going the direct route, and why they ultimately aren't strong enough in your mind (perhaps for another post).
Part of the reason I might feel this way is I've been earning-to-give at a trading firm, partly because I'm unsure of my value-add through more direct means. I'm fascinated by the idea of a more direct career, but I'm skeptical of the magnitude of my potential value-add, especially with my donations from trading as a baseline for comparison. I'd be interested to learn more about the types of things you think I should be considering (can provide more information in this vein as of course it will be different depending on my skillset).
I agree that I didn't make a tight argument: what my post offers is a bunch of counterarguments against the "earning to give" position, together with an expression of my intuitions, supported with limited empirical data. I do have a fair amount (~80%) of confidence in my intuition, but it's difficult to explicate why.
Given that you've proven yourself at a trading firm and not in other contexts, your (expected) comparative advantage may be in earning to give.
I'd be happy to discuss these things more: you can email me at jsinick (at) gmail (dot) com.
I think you probably could write a similar collection of arguments against your own position with the same or greater strength. I'm surprised at the 80% number - that's pretty confident. Then again, it's a little strange to boil it down to a number like that - as you allude to, it's going to vary considerably based on who the person is, and different people likely mean different things when they talk about the population of people who should be considering earning-to-give over direct careers. I think it's clear there are people who will have more impact in each category, and we're debating where the line is and what sort of people belong in what group.
I'll shoot you an email - thanks for that.