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Part of me thinks we should spend years reflecting on lifelong decisions before making them; hence, we ought not encourage young people (e.g., university students) to sign the GWWC pledge.
However, a bigger part of me thinks locking in altruistic desires to mitigate future selfishness is *exactly* what we should be doing. Some argue that we shouldn't make life-long decisions as young people because our preferences and values may change. Yet, to me, this is all the more reason to take the GWWC pledge; it is precisely because our altruistic tendencies might weaken that we should lock those values in. I want to do things that increase the likelihood of future-Sam still wanting to help others as much as current-Sam.
Separately, starting to donate when you're young can make the process much easier! I began giving 10% when I got my first job at 16, and it has never felt aversive or difficult. I don't think "I've earnt £100, so now I have to give up £10", instead, I just view it as earning £90. I imagine that if I started this practice aged 40, I would long for that extra £10 much more.
I personally think it's quite bad to try to get people to sign a lifetime giving pledge before they've ever had a real job, and think this is overemphasized in EA.
I think it's much better to eg make a pledge for the next 1-5 years, or the first year of your career, or something, and re-evaluate at the end of that, which I think mitigates some of your concerns
It seems pretty hard to argue with the idea that:
- You're more informed about what you're giving up if you take the 10% Pledge after having worked for 1–5 years,
- and it's generally a good thing to be informed before you make life-long commitments!
But even still, I think being an undergrad at university is a pretty great time to take the 10% Pledge. Curious what you/others think of the arguments here.
One thought is: why should the default be to keep 100% of your income? The world seems on fire, money seems like it can do a lot of good, and the people we're talking about pledging are likely pretty rich. I think in almost all cases, if you're among the richest few percent of the world, it's the right thing to do to give 10% (or more) of your income to effective charities. And I think that, even while you're an undergrad, there's a good chance you can know with very high confidence you're going to end up being among the richest few percent — assuming you're not there already.
An analogy could be raising children as vegetarians/vegans. I think this is a totally justified thing to do, and I personally wish I was raised vegetarian/vegan, so that I never craved meat. Some think that it's not fair to impose this dietary restriction on a child who can't make an informed choice, and it'd be better to only suggest they stop eating meat after they know what it tastes like. But given that eating meat is wrong (and it's also an imposition on the child to make them eat meat before they know that it is wrong!) I don't think being an omnivore should be the default.
There's admittedly an important disanalogy here: the parent isn't making a lifelong commitment on behalf of the child. But I think it still gets at something. At least in from my own experience, I feel like I benefited a lot from taking the 10% Pledge while at uni. If I hadn't, I think there's a good chance my commitment to my values could have drifted, and on top of that, every time I did give, it'd have felt like a big, voluntary/optional cost. Whereas now, it feels like a default, and I don't really know what it's like to do things another way (something I value!).
That said, I think it's pretty bad if anyone — but perhaps especially undergrads/people who are less sure what they're signing up to — feels like they were pressured to make such a big commitment. And in general, it's a rough situation if someone regrets it. But I've previously seen claims that undergrads pledging is bad, and should be discouraged, which seems like a step too far, and is more what I had in mind when I wrote this (sorry if that's not really making contact with your own views, Neel!).
I guess my issue is that this all seems strictly worse than "pledge to give 10% for the first 1-2 years after graduation, and then decide whether to commit for life". Even "you commit for life, but with the option to withdraw 1-2 years after graduation", ie with the default to continue. Your arguments about not getting used to a full salary apply just as well to those imo
More broadly, I think it's bad to justify getting young people without much life experience to make a lifetime pledge, based on a controversial belief (that it should be normal to give 10%), by saying that you personally believe that belief is true. In this specific case I agree with your belief! I took the pledge (shortly after graduating I think). But there are all kinds of beliefs I disagree with that I do not want people using here. Lots of young people make choices that they regret later - I'm not saying they should be stopped from making these choices, but it's bad to encourage them. I agree with Buck, at least to the extent of saying that undergrads who've been in EA for less than a year should not be encouraged to sign a lifetime pledge.
(On a meta level, the pledge can obviously be broken if someone really regrets it, it's not legally binding. But I think arguments shouldn't rely on the pledge being breakable)
I think the pledge hits a sweet spot. It's not legally binding, so it's not really a lifelong decision, but being a public commitment helps push people to stick to their altruistic values.
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/faq/is-a-giving-pledge-legally-binding
Currently at GWWC in our materials for EA Groups, we suggest that a Trial Pledge is a good starting point for people who are interested in effective giving, but are just learning about it.
My personal POV: I think it's generally a good idea for people to try out giving 10% or take a Trial Pledge before committing to the 10% Pledge. I think it's important that people feel comfortable with giving that amount and think seriously about what tradeoffs they might need to make if they take a 10% Pledge. But I think introducing people to the idea of the 10% Pledge at university is a good idea. We see people end up taking pledges even 10+ years after learning about it at university!
EAs inflect upwards with their intonation. I think this is used to signal uncertainty and epistemic humility. However, it's often excessive and highly noticeable to non-EAs; I saw my family for the first time in six weeks, having been in Trajan during this period, and they highlighted this change in my voice (with much mockery). I thought it might be worth noting for those that aren't aware : )
Yeah I think uptalk originated or at least was popularized in southern California, originally known as the "valley girl" inflection. As with many linguistic trends popularized by young women, the speech pattern a) is commonly derided, partially for gendered reasons and b) has increasing uptake as a linguistic innovation.
However, as OP noted, there could be social and even professional consequences of speaking in a less prestigious register, so people should take that into account. See eg this Time article:
Have you ever held a conversation with someone and found yourself questioning whether or not he or she was making a statement or asking a question? The person was probably guilty of using up-talk, or speaking with rising inflection, usually tacked on at the end of a sentence. The tone is said to have origins in California Valley girl culture, but D.C.-based vocal coach Susan Miller, says the uncertain, youthful tone is prevalent across both states and genders—despite the assumption that women are the prime culprits of up-talk. “I would say that the majority of employers come to me because people sound young,” says Susan Miller, a D.C.-based vocal coach and speech pathologist whom employers engage to help employees sound more professional. “And it’s the up-talk, the uncertainty, more than fry.”
Curated and popular this week
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[Edits on March 10th for clarity, two sub-sections added]
Watching what is happening in the world -- with lots of renegotiation of institutional norms within Western democracies and a parallel fracturing of the post-WW2 institutional order -- I do think we, as a community, should more seriously question our priors on the relative value of surgical/targeted and broad system-level interventions.
Speaking somewhat roughly, with EA as a movement coming of age in an era where democratic institutions and the rule-based international order were not fundamentally questioned, it seems easy to underestimate how much the world is currently changing and how much riskier a world of stronger institutional and democratic backsliding and weakened international norms might be.
Of course, working on these issues might be intractable and possibly there's nothing highly effective for EAs to do on the margin given much attention to these issues from society at large. So, I am not here to confidently state we should be working on these issues more.
But I do think in a situation of more downside risk with regards to broad system-level changes and significantly more fluidity, it seems at least worth rigorously asking whether we should shift more attention to work that is less surgical (working on specific risks) and more systemic (working on institutional quality, indirect risk factors, etc.).
While there have been many posts along those lines over the past months and there are of course some EA organizations working on these issues, it stil appears like a niche focus in the community and none of the major EA and EA-adjacent orgs (including the one I work for, though I am writing this in a personal capacity) seem to have taken it up as a serious focus and I worry it might be due to baked-in assumptions about the relative value of such work that are outdated in a time where the importance of systemic work has changed in the face of greater threat and fluidity.
When the world seems to
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Forethought[1] is a new AI macrostrategy research group cofounded by Max Dalton, Will MacAskill, Tom Davidson, and Amrit Sidhu-Brar.
We are trying to figure out how to navigate the (potentially rapid) transition to a world with superintelligent AI systems. We aim to tackle the most important questions we can find, unrestricted by the current Overton window.
More details on our website.
Why we exist
We think that AGI might come soon (say, modal timelines to mostly-automated AI R&D in the next 2-8 years), and might significantly accelerate technological progress, leading to many different challenges. We don’t yet have a good understanding of what this change might look like or how to navigate it. Society is not prepared.
Moreover, we want the world to not just avoid catastrophe: we want to reach a really great future. We think about what this might be like (incorporating moral uncertainty), and what we can do, now, to build towards a good future.
Like all projects, this started out with a plethora of Google docs. We ran a series of seminars to explore the ideas further, and that cascaded into an organization.
This area of work feels to us like the early days of EA: we’re exploring unusual, neglected ideas, and finding research progress surprisingly tractable. And while we start out with (literally) galaxy-brained schemes, they often ground out into fairly specific and concrete ideas about what should happen next. Of course, we’re bringing principles like scope sensitivity, impartiality, etc to our thinking, and we think that these issues urgently need more morally dedicated and thoughtful people working on them.
Research
Research agendas
We are currently pursuing the following perspectives:
* Preparing for the intelligence explosion: If AI drives explosive growth there will be an enormous number of challenges we have to face. In addition to misalignment risk and biorisk, this potentially includes: how to govern the development of new weapons of mass destr
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*Disclaimer* I am writing this post in a personal capacity; the opinions I express are my own and do not represent my employer.
I think that more people and orgs (especially nonprofits) should consider negotiating the cost of sizable expenses. In my experience, there is usually nothing to lose by respectfully asking to pay less, and doing so can sometimes save thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per hour. This is because negotiating doesn’t take very much time[1], savings can persist across multiple years, and counterparties can be surprisingly generous with discounts. Here are a few examples of expenses that may be negotiable:
For organizations
* Software or news subscriptions
* Of 35 corporate software and news providers I’ve negotiated with, 30 have been willing to provide discounts. These discounts range from 10% to 80%, with an average of around 40%.
* Leases
* A friend was able to negotiate a 22% reduction in the price per square foot on a corporate lease and secured a couple months of free rent. This led to >$480,000 in savings for their nonprofit. Other negotiable parameters include:
* Square footage counted towards rent costs
* Lease length
* A tenant improvement allowance
* Certain physical goods (e.g., smart TVs)
* Buying in bulk can be a great lever for negotiating smaller items like covid tests, and can reduce costs by 50% or more.
* Event/retreat venues (both venue price and smaller items like food and AV)
* Hotel blocks
* A quick email with the rates of comparable but more affordable hotel blocks can often save ~10%.
* Professional service contracts with large for-profit firms (e.g., IT contracts, office internet coverage)
* Insurance premiums (though I am less confident that this is negotiable)
For many products and services, a nonprofit can qualify for a discount simply by providing their IRS determination letter or getting verified on platforms like TechSoup.
In my experience, most vendors and companies
Part of me thinks we should spend years reflecting on lifelong decisions before making them; hence, we ought not encourage young people (e.g., university students) to sign the GWWC pledge.
However, a bigger part of me thinks locking in altruistic desires to mitigate future selfishness is *exactly* what we should be doing. Some argue that we shouldn't make life-long decisions as young people because our preferences and values may change. Yet, to me, this is all the more reason to take the GWWC pledge; it is precisely because our altruistic tendencies might weaken that we should lock those values in. I want to do things that increase the likelihood of future-Sam still wanting to help others as much as current-Sam.
Separately, starting to donate when you're young can make the process much easier! I began giving 10% when I got my first job at 16, and it has never felt aversive or difficult. I don't think "I've earnt £100, so now I have to give up £10", instead, I just view it as earning £90. I imagine that if I started this practice aged 40, I would long for that extra £10 much more.
I guess my issue is that this all seems strictly worse than "pledge to give 10% for the first 1-2 years after graduation, and then decide whether to commit for life". Even "you commit for life, but with the option to withdraw 1-2 years after graduation", ie with the default to continue. Your arguments about not getting used to a full salary apply just as well to those imo
More broadly, I think it's bad to justify getting young people without much life experience to make a lifetime pledge, based on a controversial belief (that it should be normal to give 10%... (read more)