Among those people interested in doing as much as they can to make the world a better place and think donating their money as effectively as possible is a good way to do that, there is a debate about whether one should either (a) donate a specific portion of one’s income in small installments each year or (b) invest one’s income and then donate as much as possible in one large lump sum right before death. Of course, there are other positions – like donate every month or donate every decade, but in a very relevant sense the debate is between two options: “give now” vs. “give later”.

In this essay, I will defend the “give now” camp and rebut the “give later” camp, thus explaining why I will continue to donate once a year, though think any sort of regular time period smaller than each year is probably also acceptable.

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Continuation of Buying Vegetarians: Handling Complications

Recently, I’ve been trying to figure out how much it costs to save animals from factory farming. The idea is to get people to become vegetarian by funding advertisements to influence them. Previously I did a simple calculation and came up with two cents to avert a year of suffering in a factory farm. Then I did a more complex calculation and came up with a range between two cents to $65.92 to avert a year of suffering.

Many people are skeptical of these figures. Perhaps surprisingly, so am I. I’m trying to strike a balance between being an advocate of vegan outreach as a very promising path for making the world a better place, while not losing sight of the methodological hurdles that have not yet been met, and open to the possibility that I’m wrong about this.

In this essay, I’m going to discuss those hurdles.

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Continuation of How Much Does It Cost to Buy a Vegetarian

Recently, I’ve been trying to figure out how much it costs to save animals from factory farming. The idea is to get people to become vegetarian by funding advertisements to influence them. In the previous essay, I used a simple formula to work out the cost and it turned out to be a really cheap $0.02 to prevent a year of animal suffering on a factory farm (about $10 to get someone to become vegetarian for a year).

I built a calculator so that anyone can play around with the formulas and be as pessimistic or optimistic as they like and see how that effects the calculations.

However, the simple calculation is… well… simple, and it needs some “beefing up”, no pun intended. Therefore, I also built a “complex calculator” that works on a much more complex formula[1] that is hopefully correct[2] and will provide a more accurate estimation. Here are the details…

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I start with the claim that it’s good for people to eat less meat, whether they become vegetarian – or, better yet, vegan – because this means less nonhuman animals are being painfully factory farmed. I’ve defended this claim previously in “Why Eat Less Meat?”.

The second idea is that it shouldn’t matter who is eating less meat. As long as less meat is being eaten, less animals will be farmed, and this is a good thing. Therefore, we should try to get other people to also try and eat less meat.

The third idea is that it also doesn’t matter who is doing the convincing. Therefore, instead of convincing our own friends and family, we can pay other people to convince people to eat less meat. And this is exactly what organizations like Vegan Outreach and The Humane League are doing. With a certain amount of money, one can hire someone to distribute pamphlets to other people or put advertisements on the internet, and some percentage of people who receive the pamphlets or see the ads will go on to eat less meat.

But the fourth idea is the complication. I want my philanthropic dollars to go as far as possible, so as to help as much as possible. Therefore, it becomes very important to try and figure out how much money it takes to get people to eat less meat, so I can compare this to other estimations and see what gets me the best “bang for my buck”.

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Welcome to the fourth edition of Sunday Links!

In this edition, I’m going to focus on the exploration of “earning to give”. You know how some people talk about “doing well by doing good”? Well “earning to give” is basically “doing good by doing well” – you look specifically for a high paying job in order to earn a lot of money, and then use your large disposable income to donate to charity.

For instance, one might think to join a non-profit and do important work and earn a salary of $30K. Or, one might instead choose to become a banker or stock trader, earn $100K+, keep the same salary of $30K, and and donate the $70K+ and hire two or more charity workers to serve in their place. Chances are good that those two charity workers who displace you will do more good combined than you will have done if you worked in their place, and that you displaced someone who would have joined finance but not donated their money.

As Jeff Kaufman considers summarizing it, the idea is to “[g]ive money to the most effective charities, and maximize your impact by earning more and spending less.”” A basic introduction of this idea can be found in the 80000 Hours topic and corresponding FAQ. Brian Tomasik also has a pretty thorough summary of the idea in “Why Activists Should Consider Making Lots of Money”.

Popular Press, Objections, and Rebuttals

This idea has taken to popular press over the years, with an article on Practical Ethics, Quartz, BBC, and recently The Washington Post and Daily Mail.

The Washington Post article in particular prompted people to write in some criticism, including a column from David Brooks. Brooks argues that (1) you risk losing your motivation and (2) you risk not living a sufficiently “full” life. Alexander Berger responds, pointing out that burnout is a risk, but the motivations of those people earning to give are definitely there and that they are living “full” lives.

A objection in the National Review that suggests “earning to give” favors individual action and ignores the good that can come from public action. This is responded to by 80,000 Hours, which says it’s a political point being read that doesn’t actually exist.

Ben Kuhn looks at more objections that surfaced in the comments sections of various articles, and he finds that people object to (1) some “earning to give” careers (like banking) doing bad by promoting negative capitalist systems, (2) that where “earning to give” people are giving (mostly the Against Malaria Foundation ignores focusing on “root causes” in favor of addressing symptoms, and (3) general objections to utilitarianism. Kuhn addresses those arguments in that article.

Jeff Kaufman also looks at objections to banking as a career and proposes we talk about other careers instead, like computer programming, teacher, or social worker. Julia Wise writes about how she could still “earn to give” on a $38K salary.

But is “Earning to Give” Actually a Good Idea?

So all this is great, and I’m glad there’s a big conversation now on effectiveness and considering career choice as an ethical question. However, while the level of criticism I’ve seen in the popular press isn’t great, there definitely are objections to “earning to give” that matter.

First, I think the issue of burnout is considered by those who think about “earning to give”, but never directly addressed. How many people pursuing “earning to give” end up burning out? And what happens then? Can one really choose any high-earning career and do well at it, or does one also need some sort of direct passion for the job?

Second, can’t there be more beneficial careers than “earning to give”? Generally, I agree with 80,000 Hours’s response and Jeff Kaufman’s consideration that “earning to give” is a baseline, not the best option. It’s a useful and powerful point of comparison to ask “Is what I’m doing better than just earning a higher salary and donating it?”.

Frequently, however, I think this baseline can be beaten. While there’s a “make more money to donate” side of things, there’s also a “make the donated money work better” side, working in the organizations themselves to increase the impact of each donation by increasing the impact of the organizations themselves. As Jeff Kaufman records in “Talent or Money”, some organizations like Giving What We Can probably would benefit more from additional talent than additional money. In “Earning to Give vs. Altruistic Career Choice Revisited”, Jonah Sinick discusses that consideration among a few others.

Overall, the career you choose is an incredibly important choice to consider not just from a personal perspective, but from an ethical perspective. But it’s also a very individual choice and the good one can do with their career and the satisfaction they can get out of it depend immensely on one’s individual talents and desires. Therefore, a would-be career do-gooder should instead try to find individualized advice (such as that offered by 80000 Hours) and consider a wider variety of careers.

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Also cross-posted on the Effective Altruist Blog.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus’s crew sailed past the island of the Sirens. In Greek lore, the Sirens were notorious for singing a song so enchanting that those who listened would sail toward the Sirens and end up crashing into the rocks, sealing their own fate.

The common solution of the era was to avoid listening to the song altogether – plugging one’s ears with beeswax. But Odysseus wanted to listen to the song… though, of course, he didn’t want to end up crashing his ship and killing his crew.

Thus, not trusting his future willpower, Odysseus had his crew tie him to the mast of the ship and precommitted to not be let go. Predictably, when he heard the song he begged to be released, but his crew followed his earlier orders and didn’t let him go. Odysseus survived on the basis of precommitment1.

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For the past two years, the only place I ate meat was at home with my family. As of October 2012, I’ve finally stopped eating meat altogether and can’t see a reason why I would want to go back to eating meat. This kind of attitude toward eating is commonly classified as “vegetarianism” where one refrains from eating the flesh of all animals, including fish, but still will consume animal products like eggs and milk (though I try to avoid egg as best I can).

Why might I want to do this? And why might I see it as a serious issue? It’s because I’m very concerned about the reality of suffering done to our “food animals” in the process of making them into meat, because I see vegetarianism as a way to reduce this suffering by stopping the harmful process, and because vegetarianism has not been hard at all for me to accomplish.

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Follow up to: Resolutions Update - May Edition

More than five months ago, I outlined some New Years Resolutions, and then did what I thought impossible – used the power of blogging, precommitment, and betting to actually stick to my plans. Following up my last report in May, I present my June update, where I see how I’m doing against my goals, and… more importantly… update my goals based on how things are going so far.

Also, this one ended up being a bit long. Sorry.

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Welcome to the third edition of Sunday Links! This time, I want to explore links on one particular concept: effective altruism, a concept near and dear to both my heart and utilitarianism.

Peter Singer summarizes effective altruism in his recent TED Talk.

What’s the key idea? Will Crouch defines effective altruism as starting with a “how” (a desire to do as much good as possible) and moving to a “what” (whatever does the most good), instead of the typical model of altruism, which starts with a “what” (ending cancer) and moving to a “how” (whatever campaigns end cancer). It’s very closely related to the idea of issue-agnostic philanthropy.

Perhaps the biggest take away is that philanthropy involves trade-offs, because donating in one place means we’re not donating in another place. However, because our money could have gone further elsewhere, we end up hurting people unintentionally. My favorite case for understanding the need for effective altruism involves Scott Siskind’s summary of efficient charity, which I referenced before. To make the idea of opportunity costs in spending apparent, Scott Siskind also jokingly suggests we adopt dead child currency.

One example of effective altruism is to focus more on the developing world than on the developed world. This might seem unintuitive at first, but when I think about it in terms of triage or Julia Wise’s notion of worst subjects, it makes sense to me. Jeff Kaufman’s debate with a pro-local friend of his also helps.

But wouldn’t this be really hard? Well, the secret is that we’re rich, compared to the developing world. But even so, it doesn’t have to be hard. You could just start somewhere, for some amount.

Where should you start? I recommend a few places, like GiveWell, The Life You Can Save, Giving What We Can. 80000 Hours, and Effective Animal Activism.

There’s much more that needs to be said, but this should be enough to get you going. A whole world of helping more by “working smarter, not harder” awaits.

I previously mentioned that individuals can make a large difference in the lives of others through donations, as long as they choose very cost-effective charities. However, while our donation does make a difference to a few people, there are much more massive institutions working to make much bigger differences in the well-being of those in other countries – foreign aid.

Foreign aid aims to eliminate extreme hunger, extreme poverty, and disease from the world altogether and usher everyone into lives in which they can be happy and live to their potential. Because foreign aid is perhaps the biggest attempt to make the world a better place, it is important to me that we get this right.

Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten it right quite yet. Fifty years of foreign aid efforts later, and extreme poverty, extreme hunger, and disease still exist. While it may seem wildly idealistic to believe that extreme poverty, extreme hunger, and disease can be eliminated soon, Peter Singer in his book The Life You Can Save argues that the elimination of all three plights is within our reach if only we studied foreign aid, looked at its failures, and made some modifications. In this essay, I explore his chapter on foreign aid.

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