Comment by thundergolfer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thundergolfer | Hacker News Reader

After hearing Will MacAskill talk about how he lives his life in accordance to his ethics he quickly became a personal hero of mine, and he certainly influenced me to start donating.

My tax-year-end donation in 2019 was at the time my biggest, as I'd completed my 1st year of full-time employment. Hovering on the donate button I definitely felt large reservations as my brain made all sorts of excuses not to send away thousands of dollars that were 'mine'. I felt that it would be helpful to document those reservations so that I could look back on them after years of donating, and I did so here: https://thundergolfer.com/charity/politics/effective-altruis...

After selling some of my stock compensation last month I doubled my previous largest donation, and the reservations were almost completely gone. It'd become obvious that my happiness depended not on that extra money but on all sorts of other non-monetary things, and my safety and health was also obviously protected enough without it.

If I 'napkin-math' the numbers and assume ~6% returns on investment and normal income growth for today's software engineers, over my life my donating will see my net-worth reduced by more than $5 million dollars. But as a young person contemplating today's crises and the crises of our near future I couldn't give less of a shit about being $5 million dollars richer.

Isn't it wiser to donate $5 mil after you've lived a full life? Giving away your future nest egg is quite a rash decision for a young person. Especially when that money will almost certainly end up mismanaged or end up in the pockets of cronies.

This is my hesitation. My wife and I debate about whether it is better to donate continuously or save up and donate most of it toward the end of our lives. My argument is that 1) if all human lives are equal in value, then we can help more total humans by letting investments compound 2) if we have some kind of unexpected emergency in life we will really wish we still had that money available. Her argument is that 1) we could die at any time and would not be around to see that the money is used how we like and 2) helping those in need earlier can also compound the benefits for their lives, which could potentially cause those people to then help others, and so on.

I’m not sure which way is “right”.

Why have ridge rules?

Her #2 is critical - people have needs now and you're in community with them now. Don't leave for tomorrow the good put before you to do today.

EAs have attempted to calculate how much better it is to donate to e.g. deworming today than to donate to the best cause in a few years. The implied interest rate is decently high.

> Especially when that money will almost certainly end up mismanaged or end up in the pockets of cronies.

This attitude is toxic. It is possible to find charities that fit your own definition of well-managed and it is worth it.

For sure, but I don't believe it's the majority.

>almost certainly end up mismanaged

Not so -- if you do your homework. My first donation is always of time rather money: A thorough, skeptical vetting of the organization itself. Start with reading the Form 990 (in USA). If the org makes its Form 990 hard to get, that's red flag #1.

No, it's not wiser. The charities to which I give have a clear and immediate need of funds to protect children from malaria and worms. It does not help those children if I wait 40 years before giving anything.

> Giving away your future nest egg is quite a rash decision for a young person.

There's risks involved, of course. But the risks are minuscule compared to the risk unfairly borne by others because they do not have the privilege of sophisticated healthcare systems, food, and clean drinking water.

I'm in my twenties and make more money than 99% of my fellow citizens. If I can not find a way to help children literally at severe risk of death before 5 years of age, who can?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com