Over 40% of my lifetime donations happened this month. I expect to never be able to make that statement again. These are weird times.
For context on why it is extra weird, I've been donating since 2015 and have always donated 10% of my salary each year (or more).
Would you be comfortable sharing what opportunities you gave to, broadly speaking?
In very broad strokes, 20% GiveWell & 80% AI Safety. About half of the AI Safety funds are to 501c4s.
Prior years were about 95% GiveWell or GiveWell top charities.
Feel free to DM me and I can share a CSV of my donations (sharing it publicly still feels kinda weird).
Earning to give is lonely and requires repeated decisions. This is bad.
If you're earning to give, you are lucky if you have one EtG team-mate. The people you talk to every day do not have moral intuitions similar to yours, and your actions seem weird to them.
If you do direct work, the psychological default every day is to wake up and do work. You are surrounded by people who think the work is important, and whose moral values at least rhyme with your own.
If you earn to give, most days you do not give (you're probably paid bi-weekly, and transaction costs discourage even donating that frequently).
These differences apply continual pressure for EtG folks to become less hard-core than we intended to be. I wish I had more counter-pressure.
[None of these observations are novel]
"If you do direct work, the psychological default every day is to wake up and do work. You are surrounded by people who think the work is important, and whose moral values at least rhyme with your own."Â
This is true for me, and true for many in richer countries sucha as the awesome AIM crew. In low-income countries though many if not most employees (especially in BINGOS) are there for the money and status in non-profits, rather than the value of the work. I know a number of Ugandans who have found this difficult when they cared about the work while their colleagues were just trying to weasel away as much money on allowances as they could while trying to unnecessarily extend projects to keep their salary going.Â
I think your major point stands, but direct work doesn't universally come with motivated and encouraging peers.
Very fair, I'm definitely speaking from the perspective of a rich Westerner working with other rich Westerners.
I'm EtG and would love to connect with others. My DMs are open! A bit about me: I'm a SWE based in Europe, and my preferred cause area is animal welfare.
We have a regular EtG meetup in London. You might be interested in setting up something similar where you live, perhaps branching off a preexisting Effective Giving/Giving What We Can group?
Besides my more cold-hearted response below: I agree that EtG is lonely. You are lucky if you have one other EtG'er in the same city. EtG is rare. EtG and feeling committed to it, is even rarer.
Oh totally. I'm lucky to be in the Bay Area where EA is a thing at all.
You don't need to make a donation decision biweekly. That sounds incredibly tiring. You can also set up a recurring donation to the same charity or fund. Or save up and donate once or twice a year. That has the advantage that you can plan some time to think well about your decision.
True, but as a matter of fact don't you continuously reassess your donation decisions? I know I do (I have the impression you do too).Â
And every time  do I that, it really helps to have people around me who I can talk to about it.Â
Do you reassess more frequently than annually or biannually, which is my impression of the Schelling point frequency for most folks?
Just annually, unless something exceptional changes how I think about these things
SMBC by Zach Weinersmith is doing a great job of conveying AI Safety memes more widely.
Relevant comics: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/speech https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/safe https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ai-17 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ai-15
I would love to see his take on an illustrated AI Safety book, like 'Open Borders' meets 'If anyone builds it, everyone dies'.
For EA folks in tech, I'm still giving mock interviews. I'm bumping this into quick takes because my post is several years old, and I don't advertise it well.
I'm pledging[1] to stop[2] saving[3] additional[4] money[5] & donate instead.
Fine print:
[1] This pledge is only good until 2030 unless renewed, and becomes invalid if I start working at a nonprofit.
[2] I'm still allowed to max out my 401k, partially since I have a 50% match there.
[3] Spending money is fine. I only spend 5% my gross, so that isn't the problem.
[4] I'm allowed to keep up with inflation, should the stock market not already do so.
[5] I'm allowed to keep saving illiquid equity, although I am encouraged to liquidate to the extent feasible to align with the spirit of the pledge.
[6] If strange situations result in me saving money having more net-expect-impact this year than donating, I'm allowed to do so. Didn't expect this to come up. Less than a 1% increase in savings, I won't beat myself up about it.
I think this is so awesome, and I hope I can make a similar pledge someday, if I achieve enough financial security.Â
I'm kinda curious how frugally you live with 5%. A concern I have is that as I get older, the lifestyles of those around me improve (since they have more money) and so it's quite hard not to raise my standards as well.Â
Also I guess you have no concerns about potentially having to support family?
The explanation is IMO less about frugality and more about getting lucky with my career choice. I spend about 45k a year, which is kinda frugal for my peers but globally I'm a spendthrift. I spend about 1.8k a month on rent, a few hundred on food, and take a vacation once or twice a year. My main hobbies are cheap (video games, board games, birding, pickleball).
It is often much easier to make more money than it is to save more. I would personally focus more on that side of the equation.
My wife & I don't want kids. If we did, I probably would want to save more (just for college). But even if we did, we were very lucky to have software engineering jobs over the last 10 years. We'd basically be fine.