Hi Laurin, glad to see you're working to help change this norm around giving! 

I'm the executive director at Giving What We Can and per @peterslattery's comment I'd be more than happy to chat if you'd like. Feel free to book a time using calend.ly/luke-gwwc

Thanks for letting me know! I'd really appreciate learning more about the feelings/reasoning behind rarely wanting to share it unless someone specifically asked. Understanding this feeling/reasoning is vital in helping to create more spreadable ideas. Feel free to DM me also 😀 

Thanks!

Loved this. Was really insightful. Thanks so much for recording the audio too! 

Generally I find it helps to separate cost from value (see The Value Of A Life) and also to point out that our decisions carry implicit value regardless of whether we articulate that value. By choosing to donate $5,000 to an art gallery rather than $5,000 to AMF to save a life (in expectation) then I am implicitly valuing the former over the latter. It helps to articulate what it is that we value to understand whether these decisions are consistent with our beliefs.

I do believe that I probably value more things than just the expected utility of sentient beings. However, I budget a significant portion of my time and money to optimising the expected utility of sentient beings  while also carving out time and money to be spent on other things (including my own hedonism, aesthetic preferences, and special obligations to people in my life etc).

Also relevant is Julia's post You Have More Than One Goal And That's Fine.

I'm thrilled to hear about this!

Nice work Ivan! We've been considering doing this at Giving What We Can. Quick one: how did you get the cost of the book + delivery down to $15?

I'd also love this – it's been on my todo list for about 5 years 😅