At the risk of being too curmudgeonly, I'd say the main take is to stay away from the news cycle.

I would argue that MacKenzie Scott’s giving is pretty close to direct indexing and … pretty not great. Though it does have the one advantage that apparently nobody will criticize you for taking this approach.

Maybe instead of indexing one should do something like, spend 5 minutes upfront to decide what your default option will be, be it GiveDirectly, GiveWell, or something else (even unicef!). And then send whatever you haven’t granted there.

My understanding is that there is an extensive body of evidence that people become more rational and put in more cognitive effort when there are real-money stakes involved; but I would welcome commentary from someone more familiar with the literature.

Among EAs, it has become de facto or even obligatory to “buy” Longtermism.

I don't really agree with this, there are plenty of shorttermist EAs and the majority of EA funding goes to shorttermist causes.

Thanks for this thoughtful piece.

One thing that I worry about when communicating on LinkedIn about EA affiliations is do-gooder derogation. Currently I am in a position where I don't have to worry about that as much, but I can easily imagine that employers might feel they can make a lowball offer to someone who is "just going to give it to charity anyway" (versus spend it on private school or whatever). For this reason I set my EA group affiliations on LinkedIn to private.

Malaria nets only last 3 years anyway, their direct impact does not require the world to last longer than that (although, perhaps you value saving a life less, if you think the world will soon end).

According to justdone.com, this post is 89% AI content, and it certainly reads that way to me.

Thanks Nick for your thoughts. I've read Poor Economics but I'm not sure that the arguments there apply to this situation.

I definitely agree that the poor struggle with purchases that require capital investment, such as buying in bulk. My sense is that partly that is because capital is just vary scarce, and partly that is because of pressure to share any accumulated capital. But the menstrual cups aren't very expensive and would be a one-time purchase, so I'm not sure that argument applies here; although I suppose that in a sense the cup is the bulk version of disposable products.

I am less familiar with the phenomenon of selling crops out of season. Could this be a social pressure thing where everyone feels compelled to invest in the village saving group?

And, I definitely agree that preventative measures are a tough sell to the poor, pretty much across the board. That is why we fund free bednet distribution, by the way! In fact in general diffusion of preventative innovations is quite slow, which is one reason why they are often subsidized or compelled by governments. Insofar as the menstrual cups constitute a preventative, I absolutely agree we should not expect the poor to buy them. But, your analysis suggests the main benefit is financial, and with a pretty quick return on investment, so this situation seems different from that.

Do you think Living Goods is well positioned to deal with those practicalities? If not, why not?

FWIW I doubt there are many (any?) EAs that would advocate for reallocating “ all arts funding to top GiveWell charities”. Everything is at the margin!