Just a magical mental gymnastics for someone who got the message that greed is bad, but wanted to continue being greedy.
Is that the standard you hold everything to?
According to AI, the biggest EA charity is GiveWell, which spends about 600 million per year. 95% of the money on low-cost high-impact global health programs like mosquito Nets and vitamins for children.
There is also open philanthropy, which gives about 500 million per year With a wider perspective. Roughly 50, 40 and 10% go to Global Health, Existential Risks, and then Animal Welfare in that order.
That said, I'm not really trying to argue the case. If the simple reason is that people have characterized EA based on SBF, and that's how they think about these things, then that is a complete answer.
Now, questions:
In your view (which I will listen to, because you're actually an EA), is the "wait until later to be more effective" actually a part of EA? Or is that a separate thing that calls itself by the same label?
If it's the same thing, it sounds like you don't act that way. Do you not buy the "later" logic? If not, why not?
The idea of waiting until later is typically called "patient philanthropy". The argument is something like:
1. People matter equally regardless of when they exist.
2. Money you invest could be far more money in the future.
3. Giving opportunities will be about as good in the future as they are today.
4. Therefore if you save to donate later you can do a lot more good.
This often looks like putting money in a Donor Advised Fund to lock in the "this has to go to charity" while still letting it grow, and then later deciding where to donate it.
It's not a common position within EA, and isn't one I hold (so I may not be fully fair to it). The main objection is to point 3: there are actually a bunch of reasons to expect that money donated today will go further than money donated later. The big one, from my perspective, is that we are increasingly creating more powerful AI systems, and we're close to making ones that are smarter than almost everyone. This is very different from anything people have done before, and could have extremely long term consequences (extinction, loss of human control over the future, locking in values that on reflection aren't great, etc).
The concept is called "patient phlithoropy", apparently about 1% of EA donations go to such funds.
There is no pope of EA that sets doctrine, so anyone can do and say what they want.
I have heard a similar argument that you dont need to sell everything you own and donate it all, because a steady X% per year is better than a lump sum and then homelessness. Or that it makes sense to spend on a college degree so you can earn and donate more later. Both make sense to me.
That said, basically every philanthropic org makes some degegree of "wait until later to be more effective". The gates foundation or churches dont try to spend every penny they have in the current year.
The thousands who donate to charity like Against Malaria Foundation or direct cash transfers, and many who pledge to donate a large percentage of their income?
I feel like there is this weird thing where people will criticize people who do charity work in not quite the right way (from the criticizers perspective), but are totally fine with people who just use their money to buy a yacht.
I'd much rather have people spend their money on feeding the hungry, even imperfectly then spending it on other pursuits.
I sometimes wonder what the critics of EA are doing to eradicate the ills of the world or even their local community. Is it more than what EA is doing? If not, i'd say those in glass houses should be wary of throwing stones.
This is a very uncommon idea within EA. There are some people who support it ("patient philanthropy") but almost everyone within EA either thinks you should be working / donating to help people/animals (most "neartermists") or you should be working / donating to help reduce extinction risk (most "longtermists").
I'm opened to having my mind changed, but i'm going to need more than that.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2023/02/28/effecti...
(They are now selling said castle.)
Are they? To what degree are they? And to what degree are they not helping the hungry today, in order to amass more money so that they can in theory help the hungry more tomorrow?
I can respect someone like Bill Gates. He hasn't been perfect, not by a long shot, but he's put real money into really trying to help real problems. What's the track record of the effective altruists? (Genuine question - I haven't researched them enough to know.)