= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Nisan 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.
I believe donating to the best charity is essentially correct, for the reason you state. You won't find much disagreement on Less Wrong or from GiveWell. Whether that's obvious or not is a matter of opinion, I suppose. Note that in GiveWell's latest top charity recommendations, they suggest splitting one's donation among the very best charities for contingent reasons not having to do with risk aversion.
If you had some kind of donor advised fund that could grow to produce an arbitrarily large amount of good given enough time, that would present a conundrum. It would be exactly the same conundrum as the following puzzle: Suppose you can say a number, and get that much money; which number do you say? In practice, however, our choices are limited. The rule against perpetuities prevents you from donating long after your lifetime; and opportunities to do good with your money may dry up faster than your money grows. Holden Karnofsky has some somewhat more practical considerations.