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Edit: The match seems to now be over - the funds were expended in around 35 minutes. But many of these charities are great and should be supported regardless!
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On October 22nd starting at 10:00am Pacific Time, Every.org is matching donations to select animal welfare organizations at a 2:1 rate, up to $2,000 per donor per nonprofit (so if you give up to $2,000, they will contribute up to $4,000 and the nonprofit will get up to $6,000). The first donation a donor makes to each el...
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Crossposted to Less Wrong
‘Like most of life’s dangers, the dangers of artificial intelligence are not easily identified from the armchair.’
J Dmitri Gallow
Epistemic status
I’m not an expert in this field, and herein I make some sweeping generalisations educated guesses about the overall...
Recent opportunities to take action
In EA, people use the word "counterfactual" in a non-standard way, but I've never heard this discussed or pointed out. E.g. Jeff writes,
But outside of the community, "counterfactual" means "didn't happen". I think the word "causal" is closest in meaning to how we use "counterfactual," though it doesn't work in this case.
(In this case, I think the standard English way of communicating the idea is "Say I offer to make a donation of $50 to AMF only if you do a thing...")
I think partly this is a reaction to dishonest charity fundraising communications that say things like “Donate today and your gift will be matched 8×”, when in reality either the match limit is virtually guaranteed to met or else the matching donor would offset any unused matching funds with a separate donation.
So consider your last sentence — maybe if I do the thing you will give an extra $100 at the end of the year or if I don’t do the thing you will give an extra $150 at the end of the year. Technically I only gave the $50 gift if you did the thing, but in reality there was no counterfactual difference in total giving.
A counterfactual donation isn't just my act being contingent on your act, it means AMF getting a net extra $50 is contingent on your act. So if part of the $50 were a donation match that would be filled regardless, or some (especially low op cost) funder would make up the difference, it wouldn't fully count.
Counterfactual is also used to mean the second choice opportunity that defines an opportunity cost. "Should I take job A? Well my counterfactual is job B, where I would do X..."
Relevant: David Lewis, "Counterfactuals"