Correction on Giving Now vs. Later
In an early draft of a paper, Philip Trammell points out two mistakes in my essay on giving now vs. later. And since writing it, I have identified a third mistake.
Continue readingAre All Actions Impermissible Under Kantian Deontology?
Epistemic status: I don’t really understand Kantian deontology.
Summary: According to the rules of Kantian deontology, an action must be impermissible if it has any probability of resulting in an impermissible outcome. But all actions have some probability of resulting in such an outcome. Therefore, all actions are impermissible.
Continue readingHow Can Donors Incentivize Good Predictions on Important but Unpopular Topics?
Altruists often would like to get good predictions on questions that don’t necessarily have great market significance. For example:
- Will a replication of a study of cash transfers show similar results?
- How much money will GiveWell move in the next five years?
- If cultured meat were price-competitive, what percent of consumers would prefer to buy it over conventional meat?
If a donor would like to give money to help make better predictions, how can they do that?
Continue readingShould Global Poverty Donors Give Now or Later?
Update 2020-01-04: This essay contains a number of important mistakes. See Correction on Giving Now vs. Later.
Disclaimer: I am not an investment advisor and nothing in this essay serves as investment advice.
Introduction
Robin Hanson: If More Now, Less Later
The rate of return on investment historically has been higher than the growth rate–or, as they say, r > g. If you save your money to donate later, you can earn enough interest on it that you eventually have the funds to donate a greater amount. Because r > g, you should invest your money for as long as you can before donating1–or so the argument goes.
Traditionally, we’d apply a discount rate of g to future donations, because that’s the rate at which people get richer and therefore the rate at which money becomes less valuable for them. But this ignores some important factors that affect how much we should discount future donations, and we can create a much more detailed estimate. This essay will explore that in detail. Exactly what factors determine the investment rate of return and the discount rate on poverty alleviation? Can we gain any information about which is likely greater?
Why Do Small Donors Give Now, But Large Donors Give Later?
Some people have observed that small and large donors follow different giving patterns. Small donors who give out of their salary—that is, most people—tend to donate money more or less as soon as they earn it (usually within a year). Large donors—e.g., extremely wealthy people and foundations—tend to slowly distribute their money and hold on to most of it1. For example, large foundations typically donate little more than the legally required 5% of assets each year. Why do they behave differently?
I don’t believe this difference is surprising, and actually it’s not really even a difference.
Continue readingNewcomb's Problem and Efficient Markets
Summary: The stock market can be modeled as Omega in Newcomb’s problem. On average, an asset will only outperform if the market predicts that you won’t buy it. So you cannot say “if I had bought that, I would have made a lot of money”, just as in Newcomb’s problem you can’t say “if I had taken both boxes, I would have gotten more money than if I only took one”.
Continue readingAll Expected Utility Distributions Have One of Two Big Problems
Summary: All expected value distributions must either (1) have a mean of infinity, or (2) have such thin tails that you cannot ever reasonably expect to see extreme values. When we’re estimating the utility distribution of an intervention, both of these options are bad.
Continue readingAn Idea for How Large Donors Can Support Small Charities
Summary: Large donors may create better incentives for both charities and small donors if, rather than providing fixed funding to a charity, they offer to match all donations to that charity over a relatively long time horizon.
Continue readingDo Investors Put Too Much Stock in the US?
Summary: Investment advisors typically recommend that you put somewhere between 50% and 75% of your stock investments into US stocks and the rest into international markets. Most individual investors have 70% or more of their stock money in the US or their home country, a phenomenon that’s aptly called home country bias. But there are reasons to believe that even 50% is too much, and most people might prefer to hold more like 0-30% of their stock investments in the United States.12
Disclaimer: I am not an investment advisor and this should not be taken as investment advice. Please do your own research or seek professional advice and otherwise take reasonable precautions before making any significant investment decisions.
Continue readingWhere I Am Donating in 2016
Part of a series for My Cause Selection 2016. For background, see my writings on cause selection for 2015 and my series on quantitative models.
Introduction
In my previous essay, I explained why I am prioritizing animal advocacy as a cause area. In this essay, I decide where to donate. I share some general considerations, briefly discuss some promising organizations I did not prioritize, and then list my top candidates for donation and explain why I considered them. I conclude with a final decision about where to donate.
This year, I plan on donating $20,000 to the Good Food Institute (GFI), which primarily works to foster the development of animal product alternatives through supporting innovation and promoting research. I believe it has an extraordinarily large expected effect on reducing animal consumption and contributing to improving societal values.
My writeup last year persuaded people to donate a total of about $40,000 to my favorite charities; if I move a similar amount this year, I believe GFI will still have substantial room for more funding even after that.
I will donate a few weeks after publishing this, so you have some time to persuade me if you believe I should make a different decision. Another donor plans to contribute an additional $60,000 AUD (~$45,000 USD) to GFI and is also open to persuasion.
This essay builds on last year’s document. Usually, unless I say differently here or in one of my previous writings, I still endorse most of the claims I made last year. Last year, I discussed my fundamental values and my beliefs about broad-level causes plus a handful of organizations, so I will not retread this ground.
Continue reading