Yes- thanks ardenlk for your article- but I personally would find it helpful to see more quantification in 80000 hours research- as Denise says would be good to know what fraction is your current view and the rationale/figures behind it-perhaps including your estimates for some of the following:
size of EA population pursuing roles you recommend, number of such roles available over a year, probability of average EA landing these roles over a year (perhaps this may be lower than the number of roles/applicants due to some applicants being more qualified/experienced than the average EA), the monetary impact of each of the roles you recommend for EAs to compare to earning to give. I think this would help EAs to make a more informed decision about their career choice.
Apologies if you've already published these or similar figures and I havent seen. Perhaps there is a fear of not wanting to be a hostage to these numbers, but I think its fine to change your mind/estimates as the facts change (as per John Maynard Keynes), and understandable given that research into effective careers is at an early stage.
Tee, thanks for this useful writeup of RC forward and am very glad to see the success of the project so far. I've been impressed with rethink charity's evolution over time and am happy to continue to support it. A couple of follow up questions
1) Have you looked into working with these effective charities to help them get canadian tax deductible status- I know Stan van Wingerden of effective giving is doing this for the netherlands.
2) Some of these charities do seem to have CAD tax deductible status (AMF, SCI)- so is your value add for these charities limited to reducing processing fees for cryptocurrency donations?
I am thoroughly shocked by these numbers and can't understand why they've not been more widely publicized- or perhaps everyone is aware of them apart from me! I've been an effective altruist for 4 years, but never realized that knowledgeable people had such seriously high estimates of the risk of total extinction over the next 100 years. If people have estimates like these (or as Gregory Lewis says within factors of 10000 of them)- then surely the logical conclusion is that all other causes pale in comparison and that all EAs should focus their efforts purely on x-risk. And yet judging by EA funds donations- the community sees it very differently.
Thanks Harald, this is a terrific article and should be required reading for all UK donors. I love the graphs in particular and the content looks accurate to me. I think gift aid and tax relief are important considerations which increase the benefit of giving now relative to giving later- particularly for higher rate taxpayers. In retirement, most people will have a significantly lower income than during working life, and very few people indeed are likely to be higher rate taxpayers in retirement and benefit for a 1.67 multiplier. There also seems to be little tax benefit to donating to charities in your will - unless you have a large estate beyond the high threshold for inheritance tax (effectively 650,000 for married couples) and presumably there is no gift aid on bequests except for any income tax you paid in your final year of life?
Hi Elie, good to have some information on how you expect to allocate funds in future. My preference would be option (a), I can see why you might retain some funding, but I would like to see money invested fairly regularly- quarterly seems reasonable. I think $500k is too much to retain given the current fund size- hopefully if donors see regular donations, donations to ea funds will increase and you'd have more money available between allocations should you see opportunities.
Yes- thanks ardenlk for your article- but I personally would find it helpful to see more quantification in 80000 hours research- as Denise says would be good to know what fraction is your current view and the rationale/figures behind it-perhaps including your estimates for some of the following:
size of EA population pursuing roles you recommend, number of such roles available over a year, probability of average EA landing these roles over a year (perhaps this may be lower than the number of roles/applicants due to some applicants being more qualified/experienced than the average EA), the monetary impact of each of the roles you recommend for EAs to compare to earning to give. I think this would help EAs to make a more informed decision about their career choice.
Apologies if you've already published these or similar figures and I havent seen. Perhaps there is a fear of not wanting to be a hostage to these numbers, but I think its fine to change your mind/estimates as the facts change (as per John Maynard Keynes), and understandable given that research into effective careers is at an early stage.
Tee, thanks for this useful writeup of RC forward and am very glad to see the success of the project so far. I've been impressed with rethink charity's evolution over time and am happy to continue to support it. A couple of follow up questions
1) Have you looked into working with these effective charities to help them get canadian tax deductible status- I know Stan van Wingerden of effective giving is doing this for the netherlands.
2) Some of these charities do seem to have CAD tax deductible status (AMF, SCI)- so is your value add for these charities limited to reducing processing fees for cryptocurrency donations?
I am thoroughly shocked by these numbers and can't understand why they've not been more widely publicized- or perhaps everyone is aware of them apart from me! I've been an effective altruist for 4 years, but never realized that knowledgeable people had such seriously high estimates of the risk of total extinction over the next 100 years. If people have estimates like these (or as Gregory Lewis says within factors of 10000 of them)- then surely the logical conclusion is that all other causes pale in comparison and that all EAs should focus their efforts purely on x-risk. And yet judging by EA funds donations- the community sees it very differently.
Thanks Harald, this is a terrific article and should be required reading for all UK donors. I love the graphs in particular and the content looks accurate to me. I think gift aid and tax relief are important considerations which increase the benefit of giving now relative to giving later- particularly for higher rate taxpayers. In retirement, most people will have a significantly lower income than during working life, and very few people indeed are likely to be higher rate taxpayers in retirement and benefit for a 1.67 multiplier. There also seems to be little tax benefit to donating to charities in your will - unless you have a large estate beyond the high threshold for inheritance tax (effectively 650,000 for married couples) and presumably there is no gift aid on bequests except for any income tax you paid in your final year of life?
Hi Elie, good to have some information on how you expect to allocate funds in future. My preference would be option (a), I can see why you might retain some funding, but I would like to see money invested fairly regularly- quarterly seems reasonable. I think $500k is too much to retain given the current fund size- hopefully if donors see regular donations, donations to ea funds will increase and you'd have more money available between allocations should you see opportunities.