Emily comments on Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Gondolinian 15 December 2014 12:01AM

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Comment author: B_For_Bandana 17 December 2014 09:03:17PM *  4 points [-]

When you go to GiveWell's Donate page, one of the questions is,

How should we use your gift? We may use unrestricted gifts to support our operations or to make grants, at our discretion:

And you can choose the options:

  • Grants to recommended charities

  • Unrestricted donation

I notice I'm reluctant to pick "Unrestricted," fearing my donation might be "wasted" on GiveWell's operations, instead of going right to the charity. But that seems kind of strange. Choosing "Unrestricted" gives GiveWell strictly more options than choosing "Grants to recommended charities" because "Unrestricted" allows them to use the money either for their own operations, or just send it to the charities anyway. So as long as I trust GiveWell's decision-making process, "Unrestricted" is the best choice. And I presumably do trust GiveWell's decision-making, since I'm giving away some money based on their say-so. But I'm nevertheless inclined to hit "Grants to recommended charities," despite, like, mathematical proof that that's not the best option.

Can we talk about this a little? How can I get less confused?

Comment author: Emily 18 December 2014 03:15:54PM 2 points [-]

Maybe this would be a coherent position:

  • You trust GiveWell's judgement on which charities are the best choices
  • You think they've done enough work to establish this, at least for the time being
  • You don't plan to give more money in the immediate future
  • Therefore, you want your money go to to the charities, not to a decision-making process that you now see as having diminishing returns

I'm not sure I'd buy it myself... it seems like it really only makes sense if you don't think anybody else is going to be giving money to GiveWell in the immediate future either (or perhaps ever?).

Comment author: banx 19 December 2014 12:37:57AM 2 points [-]

You could also just think that GiveWell doesn't currently have as much room for more funding as the recommended charities do, even though GiveWell may disagree with that assessment.

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