I think that's his point: Precommitting to donate $X per month regardless of your personal circumstances is equivalent to taking out a loan that can be paid off at $X per month and donating the proceeds of the loan. The latter course of action is self-evidently bad; the donation of $X per month is bad for the same reasons.
On the other hand, perhaps my sarcasm detector is miscalibrated and he really means it, in which case yeah, taking out a loan to donate is stupid.
I indeed find the two cost-equivalent, I did not doubt that there are people who can precommit to donating monthly, and I figured that if someone precommits, he might as well borrow to increase efficiency. Yes, if loaning is bad, precommiting is of course bad too.
I did not realize that these things happen halfyearly. With that in mind, everyone who donates monthly should stop that, and instead save up money to donate on the next doubling. (Are the $200000 caps usually reached?)
(MIRI maintains Less Wrong, with generous help from Trike Apps, and much of the core content is written by salaried MIRI staff members.)
Update 09-15-2013: The fundraising drive has been completed! My thanks to everyone who contributed.
The original post follows below...
Thanks to the generosity of several major donors,† every donation to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute made from now until (the end of) August 15th, 2013 will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to a total of $200,000!
Donate Now!
Now is your chance to double your impact while helping us raise up to $400,000 (with matching) to fund our research program.
This post is also a good place to ask your questions about our activities and plans — just post a comment!
If you have questions about what your dollars will do at MIRI, you can also schedule a quick call with MIRI Deputy Director Louie Helm: louie@intelligence.org (email), 510-717-1477 (phone), louiehelm (Skype).
Early this year we made a transition from movement-building to research, and we've hit the ground running with six major new research papers, six new strategic analyses on our blog, and much more. Give now to support our ongoing work on the future's most important problem.
Accomplishments in 2013 so far
Future Plans You Can Help Support
(Other projects are still being surveyed for likely cost and strategic impact.)
We appreciate your support for our high-impact work! Donate now, and seize a better than usual chance to move our work forward.
If you have questions about donating, please contact Louie Helm at (510) 717-1477 or louie@intelligence.org.
† $200,000 of total matching funds has been provided by Jaan Tallinn, Loren Merritt, Rick Schwall, and Alexei Andreev.