= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
solipsist comments on Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (309)
I want to open up the debate again whether to split donations or to concentrate them in one place.
One camp insists on donating all your money to a single charity with the highest current marginal effectiveness. The other camp claims that you should split donations for various reasons ranging from concerns like "if everyone thought like this" to "don't put all your eggs in one basket." My position is firmly in the second camp as it seems to me obvious that you should split your donations just as you split your investments, because of risk.
But it is not obvious at all. If a utility function is concave risk aversion arises completely naturally and with it all the associated theory of how to avoid unnecessary risk. Utilitarians however seem to consider it natural that the moral utility function is completely linear in the number of people or QALYs or any other measure of human well-being. Is there any theoretical reason risk-aversion can arise if a utility function is completely linear in the way described before?
In the same vein, there seems to be no theoretical reason for having time preference in a certain world. So if we agree that we should invest our donations and donate them later it seems like there is no reason to actually donate them at any time since at any such time we could follow the same reasoning and push the donation even further. Is the conlcusion then to either donate now or not at all? Or should the answer be way more complicated involving average and local economic growth and thus the impact of money donated now or later?
Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good, but this rabbit hole seems to go deeper and deeper.
Your utility function need not be completely linear, just locally linear. If your utility function measures against the total good done in the world, your effect on the world will be small enough to be locally linear
Most people don't want to optimize the total good done, but instead care about the amount of good they do. People donate to charity until the marginal utility they derive from purchasing moral satisfaction falls below the marginal utility they derive from purchasing other things. In this case, diversification makes sense, because utility you assign to good you're responsible for is very non-linear.
If you're giving to charity at all, that's awesome. Do what motivates you.
Interesting answer. Seeing as my personal giving is completely out of pleasure not some kind of moral obligation, the argument for diversification is very strong.
Ah. Well, then there doesn't seem to be anything to debate here. If you want to do what makes you happy, then do what makes you happy.
The theoretical question still stands.