If it's the first paycheck you've earned in five years and you can't afford to eat out once a week without the donation, and you have a lot of debt, it's likely you have little or no savings. If so, I would suggest putting the $100 in the bank in preference to either eating out or CFAR. You never know when a $100 expense might come up.
Furthermore, you should be paying off the debt anyway. Put it this way: Imagine that instead of you coming into possession of $100, someone were to shave $100 off your debt directly. Under those circumstances, would you go into $100 more debt (cancelling the effect of reducing it) to be able to give some money to CFAR? (Ignoring the fact that you probably can't borrow in increments of $100.) If you wouldn't increase your debt by 100 to pay CFAR in the first scenario, you shouldn't pay CFAR in preference to reducing your debt by $100 in this scenario.
nod that's pretty reasonable, but my total living expenses are only 50% of my income, and I got a sign-on bonus. I'm basically planning on saving 50%, living off the other 50%, and then paying off debts from the savings as the savings passes a certain threshold (defined as 6 months of living expenses). Between the sign-on bonus and the "have fun so I don't fall back into depression and despair" part of living expenses (which is an ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY living expense and therefore already included in the non-saved 50%), $100 for a charity I believ...
Update: The fundraiser has been completed! Details here. The original post follows...
(Cross-posted from MIRI's blog. MIRI maintains Less Wrong, with generous help from Trike Apps, and much of the core content is written by salaried MIRI staff members.)
Thanks to Peter Thiel, every donation made to MIRI between now and January 15th, 2014 will be matched dollar-for-dollar!
Also, gifts from "new large donors" will be matched 3x! That is, if you've given less than $5k to SIAI/MIRI ever, and you now give or pledge $5k or more, Thiel will donate $3 for every dollar you give or pledge.
We don't know whether we'll be able to offer the 3:1 matching ever again, so if you're capable of giving $5k or more, we encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity while you can. Remember that:
Please email malo@intelligence.org if you intend on leveraging corporate matching or would like to pledge 6 months of monthly donations, so that we can properly account for your contributions towards the fundraiser.
Thiel's total match is capped at $250,000. The total amount raised will depend on how many people take advantage of 3:1 matching. We don't anticipate being able to hit the $250k cap without substantial use of 3:1 matching — so if you haven't given $5k thus far, please consider giving/pledging $5k or more during this drive. (If you'd like to know the total amount of your past donations to MIRI, just ask malo@intelligence.org.)
Now is your chance to double or quadruple your impact in funding our research program.
Donate Today
Accomplishments Since Our July 2013 Fundraiser Launched:
How Will Marginal Funds Be Used?
Other projects are still being surveyed for likely cost and impact.
We appreciate your support for our 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. Screenshot Service provided by LinkPeek.com.