{"items": [{"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/114916079067259685158", "anchor": "gp-1311808467594", "service": "gp", "text": "How did you conclude that the best course of action was to make and donate as much money as possible, rather than, say, evangelizing this viewpoint aggressively to get other people to make and donate as much money as possible? (Or determining the most cost-effective way to minimize unhappiness and starting a charity that does that? It seems like most charities are only interested in optimizing for cost-effectiveness locally.)", "timestamp": 1311808467}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311812449154", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben: I think following my own advice and giving away a lot is more effective towards this end than just evangelizing. I can also do some evangelizing while working a full time job.\n
\n
\nStarting a charity is probably not as effective as finding an existing one that's doing a good job, and givewell appears to be effective at charity evaluation.\n
\n
\nI'm not sure what you mean by \"optimizing for cost-effectiveness locally\".", "timestamp": 1311812449}, {"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/114916079067259685158", "anchor": "gp-1311814991284", "service": "gp", "text": "@Jeff: I didn't mean \"just\" evangelizing instead of a full-time job. (For one thing, your evangelism wouldn't be as effective if you didn't have the opportunity to practice it yourself.) But the idea of optimal charity is a lot less prevalent than I would expect, and the only person I know of who evangelizes it is Peter Singer, who isn't very convincing. So I think there are a lot of people who would be receptive to this idea.\n
\n
\nPlus, it seems very time-effective. Quick and dirty math: Say you're giving 50% of your money to charity. Then you \"convert\" five people to give 10% each. Unless converting those five people took six months of full-time work, it's already more effective than working full-time after one year. If you can convince them to keep giving and evangelize, of course, the returns are even better.\n
\n
\n(What I meant by optimizing locally was: my impression is that charities don't try to optimize cost-effectiveness until \nafter\n picking a problem, and if you made cost-effectiveness your goal you might hit on different problems that these charities missed. On reflection, though, I think this is a silly objection and kind of a stretch. Feel free to ignore.)", "timestamp": 1311814991}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1311819765195", "service": "gp", "text": "I'm skeptical that this belief meets the confidence standards laid out in your initial post. The question of whether donating to charity is the most effective way to address the problems you note is a very complex economic issue, and I'd be very surprised to learn that you have researched it enough to be meaningfully confident in your conclusion (though you would have the dedication to do that if anyone would).", "timestamp": 1311819765}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311822417003", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben: I've considered that, but I'm not very effective at convincing people. I've in fact always been really bad at it. When I argue with people, they tend to agree with me less than when I started.\n
\n
\nAs for cost effectiveness, whether charities pick a problem based on cost effectiveness or not doesn't matter because we get to choose between charities and can pick the one doing the best work in whatever field is most cost effective.", "timestamp": 1311822417}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311823571838", "service": "gp", "text": "@Todd: you may be right. What I have high confidence in is that the welfare of others is important and that we should to do what we can. Working to earn as much money as possible to donate to international development charities that do impact evaluations is only what I believe is the best way to accomplish this.\n
\n
\nMy confidence in the effectiveness of this strategy mostly comes from having enough information on givewell [1] to decide that (a) they have similar goals to me and (b) they're pretty smart. And then I let them do the thinking about how to put the money to good use while I work on getting them the money. It doesn't make sense for each person who wants to help to have to become an expert on effective aid.\n
\n
\n[1] previously I would have put \"oxfam's monitoring and evaluation people\" here", "timestamp": 1311823571}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1311824196985", "service": "gp", "text": "Ok, that's fair.\n
\n
\nI have a lot of skepticism about the fundamental efficacy of charity, so while I agree that we can't all be expected to do our own research, I'd like to see something that convinces me that it really has a sustained significant impact before I start giving charities any significant amount of money.\n
\n
\nI tend to think that general economic growth and the advancement of technology are more successful in this regard. If I'm right, then being an informed consumer is a better (though not the best) way to help, insofar as it incentivizes growth (economically and technologically). But that belief is based on anecdote and intuition, not hard data.", "timestamp": 1311824196}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/114588710186521489410", "anchor": "gp-1311824435055", "service": "gp", "text": "I know this project is about listing the things you currently firmly believe, but I'd like to see you point out the less-firm bits. One big question here is how much to keep/give. I know you're not certain about that, but it might provoke useful discussion if you at least mention your uncertainties.", "timestamp": 1311824435}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311856127168", "service": "gp", "text": "@Todd:\n
\n
\nDoes the givewell evaluation of village reach (\nhttp://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/villagereach\n) convince you that it is having a sustained significant impact? If it doesn't, I don't think there is currently any better evidence out there that will convince you.\n
\n
\nAs for the effectiveness of being an informed consumer, I would expect something like \nhttp://givedirectly.org\n (new charity, direct cash transfers) to do a better job of incentivising growth by increasing the number of people who are driving it. Givedirectly is too young to have data back from their impact evaluation yet, but I don't think you have an impact evaluation for being an informed consumer either.", "timestamp": 1311856127}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311856302774", "service": "gp", "text": "@Julia: you're right that the phrasing \"earn as much money as I can and donate it\" weasels out of the question of how much to keep for myself. And yes, I don't currently have a firm answer to that. What I'm currently going with is 1/3 of my pretax income, but that number is pretty arbitrary.", "timestamp": 1311856302}, {"author": "Holly", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103155559413084004700", "anchor": "gp-1311866186305", "service": "gp", "text": "There's also ambiguity about \"earning as much money as I can\". I would add \"without going totally insane\" as probably everyone can find a better paying job that they wouldn't take because the work/working conditions/hours etc would be too much for them to bear.", "timestamp": 1311866186}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311866958384", "service": "gp", "text": "@Holly: Right. \"Earn as much money as you can\" does not mean making choices that you believe would result in actually earning less over time because you burn out.", "timestamp": 1311866958}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1311873513219", "service": "gp", "text": "I don't have time to peruse those links right this minute, but I will.\n
\n
\nI did also have a couple questions about the \"earn as much money as you can\" aspect, though.\n
\n
\n1. Does this approach leave room for the personal utility involved in choosing a career based on personal preference? Do you think that's taken care of by this burn-out clause (I don't, because plenty of people hate their jobs without burning out)?\n
\n
\n2. If everyone optimizes their career choice using these criteria, what happens if it produces an extremely skewed distribution of chosen fields? This seems at least moderately likely to me (e.g. too many lawyers, not enough teachers), even accounting for the resulting change in the labor supply curve.\n
\n
\nMy intuition here is that it should be changed to something like \"make as much money as you can within your preferred field\". I think there's plenty of room for people to do work that pleases them, including low expected income work, given that someone is going to end up in those positions either way, and that people's job satisfaction is also pretty critical to overall levels of satisfaction, which I think are plenty important.", "timestamp": 1311873513}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311874524306", "service": "gp", "text": "@Todd:\n
\n
\nRe (1): I don't think it does leave very much room, actually. If I think I will do a better job working in a field I'm excited about, and so earn more money than if I worked in an otherwise higher paying field that interests me less, maybe. But if I choose to be a full time contra dance caller and musician instead of a computer programmer, what that amounts to is spending a huge amount of money on myself (the difference in pay) so I can have a job I think I will enjoy more, and being able to give away much less.\n
\n
\nRe (2): I think there are already a lot of people choosing work by what different field pay, so this shouldn't make things much worse. Also, supply and demand would suggest that a glut of lawyers would bring down compensation for lawyers (and the reverse for a lack of teachers) until your distribution was unskewed.\n
\n
\nThat \"someone is going to end up in those positions either way\", if true, doesn't matter to me as a person trying to maximize my positive impact. Sure, some people are going to make a lot of money, and some other people are going to make much less, but I should try and be in the first group so I can give away more.", "timestamp": 1311874524}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/102487727783123805341", "anchor": "gp-1311888361988", "service": "gp", "text": "I don't entirely disagree, but it seems like you're neglecting any social value of the job itself. I could almost certainly make more money as a biologist than as a teacher, but there is also value to having good math and biology teachers. It's probably difficult to quantify what that value is, but I suppose it could be large. I've heard of teachers who managed to keep gangsters in school, who have gone on to college and careers and so forth, instead of ending up dead or in prison. I'm not sure I'd say doing something like that and donating less to charity is necessarily a less moral choice. And honestly, good teachers are needed more in poorer urban and rural schools than in the suburban schools where they would be paid better. I certainly don't think it's less moral to work as a teacher in the inner city though.", "timestamp": 1311888361}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311897541294", "service": "gp", "text": "@Julia: there's social value in working as a biologist, too, though. Biologists invent stuff, sometimes, that make the world better for a lot of people. Also, say while working as a teacher at a pay cut of ~$40K/year (total guess) you keep one student per year away from gangs and dying (which I suspect is high; many teachers never dissuade anyone from becoming a gangster and ending up dead or in prison), that's $40K per life saved. Your money can go a lot farther than that through charity, probably better than $1K per life saved if you give to villagereach:\n
\n
\n \nhttp://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas", "timestamp": 1311897541}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/102487727783123805341", "anchor": "gp-1311898607886", "service": "gp", "text": "Is lives saved the only metric by which you judge effectiveness? Under that framework, you're probably right. I don't think lives saved is the metric I'm using, though. Sadly, I don't really have time to figure out exactly what I \nam\n using, let alone verbalize it, since I have a paper to write.", "timestamp": 1311898607}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1311901317678", "service": "gp", "text": "@Julia: I don't think lives saved is the chief metric. I used it because you mentioned the possibility of a teacher keeping someone from gangsterdom and death, and it seemed comparable. As a metric it has a lot of flaws: a person can have their life saved many times. Or you can save the life of someone who is very likely to die from something else, which (cold heartedly speaking) is less effective than saving the life of someone who will be later in less danger.\n
\n
\nI do think that the happiness you would add to students lives is probably less than the happiness the extra money you could earn and donate would give in terms of meeting people's basic human needs elsewhere. I think the harm of having someone less engaging and inspiring than you for my biology teacher is probably much smaller than the harm of many more people dying from diseases that can be cheaply prevented. (This is not because I think you would be a bad teacher -- I think you would be a very good teacher. I just also think you would be an excellent (and high earning) biologist who could do more good in a less personally fulfilling way.)", "timestamp": 1311901317}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1312162544091", "service": "gp", "text": "Teachers might be in a particularly well-suited position to influence students' future charitable giving.", "timestamp": 1312162544}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1312199868126", "service": "gp", "text": "@David: then the students would see someone who thought being a teacher was the best way to maximize impact, and perhaps choose to do the same. Saying \"everyone should do X, but I'm going to do Y because it is a better position from which to convince people to do X\" worries me.", "timestamp": 1312199868}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1312208514161", "service": "gp", "text": "@Jeff: I think it's not as bad as that--more like \"Everyone should do Z, and the way I can best do Z is Y but maybe (or probably) the way you can best do Z is X.\"\n
\n
\nWhere Z is \"do things to address the unhappiness from having basic needs go unmet.\"", "timestamp": 1312208514}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1312209190385", "service": "gp", "text": "@David: your last 'Y' might want to be an 'X'.\n
\n
\nI think you're underestimating the power of being an example.", "timestamp": 1312209190}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1312209650678", "service": "gp", "text": "@Jeff: Fixed. (Google+ doesn't leave an edit history? I think it should!)\n
\n
\nYeah, plausible. Some of my thinking (on the proselytizing and personal angles both) is clouded by issues of how much to give, and much to ideally try to convince other people to give.\n
\n
\nAs you note, choosing a personally-preferred career that leaves less to give away is spending money on oneself. So should a person decide a certain proportion of their maximum possible earnings, and then give away that much, regardless of their actual earnings? There's something odd about proportions, though.\n
\n
\nI know we've talked about this before, but it's on my mind now, and all seems very complicated. Seems to relate strongly to psychology and personal motivation type stuff.", "timestamp": 1312209650}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1312210521367", "service": "gp", "text": "@David:\n
\n
\nG+ leaves an edit history by adding \"(edited 10:34 AM)\" to your comment. Kind of like reddit where there's a little star added for comments that have been edited. On reddit there is a culture of saying \"EDIT: typos\" or something when you make a change, but I don't think there's that here (yet?).\n
\n
\nI don't think straight proportions are the way to go. The best rule I've sound so far is a proportion of the maximum amount you think you could be earning if you were maximizing income.", "timestamp": 1312210521}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/102487727783123805341", "anchor": "gp-1312232439892", "service": "gp", "text": "It might be important to consider what the kids would do without the teacher's influence. They might go become wildly successful biologists or whatever and give lots of money to charity, but because of the teacher's influence, they go become teachers instead. Or without the teacher's influence, they could become gangsters or highly paid biologists who don't give any money to charity, in which case the teacher influencing their future charitable giving, whether they become teachers or not, would be more positive.\n
\n
\nThe subject the teacher is teaching probably affects the teacher's ability to influence his students as well. I'd imagine a civics teacher has more opportunity than, say, a math teacher. \n
\n
\nAnother question is how much the teacher should influence his or her students' morality. My French teacher comes to mind as a sort of negative example. She spent the better part of a class period explaining to us how homosexuals were child molesters and the cause of everything wrong with the Catholic Church in particular and society in general. Is that appropriate? If not, how is it different from influencing students' future giving?", "timestamp": 1312232439}, {"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/101391698163358104473", "anchor": "gp-1312269412877", "service": "gp", "text": "@Jeff, I think you're right about the power of example - knowing how you and Julia handle money has made me give more money to charity (although it's still an admittedly stingy 2% of my pre-tax income).\n
\n
\n@David, it sounds like Jeff's argument goes beyond \"we should all do our best to help basic needs be met for all people.\" My reading of it is that, since our part of the world has such abundant resources, and other parts have such a dire lack, it's our obligation to redistribute as many resources as we can to the people who need them most.\n
\n
\nI find the logic sound - certainly up to the conclusion, \"You should donate a maximal percentage of your lifetime income.\" But I hesitate to take the next step, which is, \"You should donate a maximal percentage of your POTENTIAL lifetime income.\" In other words, you should earn as much money as you can, so that you can donate it.\n
\n
\nI'm not saying that step is illogical, but it's a real rabbit hole. The problem that bothers me most: Does this leave time for raising children? Should I avoid having kids, since the time commitment may cut down on my lifetime earnings? Or is it okay to have kids, but only if I find a really cheap babysitter, and I never miss a meeting at my high-paying consultant job? It seems like the \"avoid burn-out\" clause is how one justifies occasional expenditures on oneself. But can that argument justify a massive commitment of time and energy like raising children?\n
\n
\nMy feeling about this brand of utilitarianism is that (to borrow the language of calculus), it works for finding local optima, but not global optima. I'll accept that once you've picked a career path, you should give all you can to charity (although I'll confess I'm not living up to this right now). But I'm reluctant to accept the stronger conclusion that this should govern my choice of career as well.", "timestamp": 1312269412}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/114588710186521489410", "anchor": "gp-1312306686806", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben: the children thing bothers me too. We're willing to shuffle things around in time some, so if I decide to stay home for a few years, I owe the world those missing wages to be paid later. So if you earn $80K/year and commit to giving $40K/year, and each kid costs $10K per year to raise, you have $30K a year to live on. If you can't keep up your planned donation of $40K/year (because you had more than one kid or couldn't manage on $30K or cut back on consulting meetings or switched to a lower-paying job with a more flexible schedule) you could continue living on less than $40K later, once your kids stopped costing as much, and make up your donations then.\n
\n
\nI don't see a reason to apply utilitarianism to only the choice of money use and not the choice of career. I chose social work because I thought I would burn out at any of the higher-paying options I could think of, but I'm starting to rethink that. Possibly I've been protecting myself from a less-preferred career by overestimating my own fragility. \n
\n
\nI make most of these decisions by putting myself in someone else's place. If I were a parent in Tanzania whose child was dying of something stupid like malaria, would I want Julia in America to be a happy social worker who couldn't afford to save my child, or a less-happy lawyer who could save my child and all my neighbors' children? Obviously I wouldn't want Julia to break down and save no children, but if she thought it was reasonably likely she wouldn't break . . .", "timestamp": 1312306686}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1312309905224", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben: by giving even 2%, you are doing a lot of good. If we could get most americans to do the same, giving 2% to effective charities, the effect would be enormous.\n
\n
\nI think there are reasons to shoot for less than optimal. Showing others that you can help people by giving a significant amount of money away without making yourself miserable could be valuable. Power of a positive example. Certainly it is better to give some than to say \"this is all too hard and has too much potential to make me miserable if taken to the extreme\" and so do nothing.\n
\nThe idea of keeping money for yourself beyond what is minimally necessary for you to keep earning at your maximum potential is not justified by strict utilitarian reasoning. The idea of using percentages for determining how much to give is similarly unsupported. Utilitarianism says spend each dollar where it will maximize happiness, and spending dollars on yourself beyond what's needed for you to keep earning maximally rarely will generate more happiness than giving them away.\n
\n
\nBut I don't want to live like that. I'm willing to give up some to help people I will never meet, but not that much. It would be better for me to do so, but I'm not that strong. I decided to earn as much money as I can and give away 1/3 of it, knowing that giving more would be better.\n
\n
\nOnce I've decided how much I'm going to give for the year, I divide my income into \"must be given away\" and \"can't be given away\". This is so that when I make individual decisions (donut?) I don't need to weigh my desire against the good that the money could be doing if donated (which would make me miserable).\n
\n
\nOnce I have a pool of money I'm not giving away, whether to have kids is a \"donation-neutral\" decision, in that whether I do or not does not affect how much money I will be giving away.\n
\n
\n\"My feeling about this brand of utilitarianism is that it works for finding local optima, but not global optima.\"\n
\n
\nI don't see how that works. I reject some decisions the utilitarian logic gives because I find them too painful, but I don't see how the logical reasoning is nonoptimal.", "timestamp": 1312309905}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1312310307105", "service": "gp", "text": "@Julia B: I agree that figuring out how much it's ok to use your position of authority and trust as a teacher to influence the morality of your students is really hard.\n
\n
\nSetting an example is usually ok, in that if the students are old enough you can probably do some sort of making it known that you believe people have an obligation to help others. In fact, while a civics professor might be in a better position to exert direct influence, a math teacher might be in a better one to \nacceptably\n influence students (because it's unrelated to the subject matter).", "timestamp": 1312310307}, {"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/101391698163358104473", "anchor": "gp-1312322811655", "service": "gp", "text": "@Julia& Jeff: I can't think of any logic to support the view that utilitarianism is good for finding local optima, but not global ones. It's not a logical stance, just a practical one. I can deal with the little daily sacrifices (less travel, fewer new clothes, etc.) that a limited application of utilitarian logic would entail. (Easy enough - I don't even like buying clothes.) I can't accept the bigger sacrifices (not having kids, working a job I dislike) that strict utilitarianism would entail.\n
\n
\nSo I think I'm saying the same thing as Jeff: the logic of utilitarianism leads to some conclusions I won't accept. The reasoning may be sound, but since it leads to some places I refuse to follow, I occasionally reject the framework.\n
\n
\nAnd since we're not following the utilitarian logic to the ends of the earth anyway, there seems to be a window for Julia B. to choose teaching, or for Julia W. to choose social work, even if they're not (as Jeff counsels in his belief listing above) earning as much money as they can. Such decisions would seem akin to Jeff's choosing to give 30% rather than, say, 40%. (Although perhaps this is all compatible with Jeff's original belief listing, if I reinterpret it as an ideal to strive for, rather than a directive to execute.)\n
\n
\n@Julia W.: The \"what would I think if I were in someone else's shoes\" logic is pretty compelling. But it may fall into the category of arguments that I agree with philosophically, but can't bear to act on. Like Jeff, I'd have trouble getting through the day if I saw every scone or jar of applesauce as a mosquito net I'm refusing to buy.", "timestamp": 1312322811}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1312327089935", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben: I think of utilitarianism as basically a definition/choice about what \"optimal\" means (globally, I guess). The distinction between act and rule utilitarianism may be partly about optima that are only \"local\" in some sense -- the rule utilitarians, I think, are afraid of act utilitarians setting a bad precedent. But that doesn't really seem to be an issue here, as far as I can tell. ", "timestamp": 1312327089}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1312332853116", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben:\n
\n
\nThe thing is, while I won't take utilitarianism all the way, I don't reject the framework. I'm trying to do the most good while sacrificing the least. Maybe this comes down to utilitarian calculation with a restriction that my happiness shouldn't go below some level? So if I choose to be a musician instead of a programmer, and that's a loss of $60K/year in income, the framework tells me that's an equivalent choice to cutting my donations by $60K and remaining a programmer, so I should treat those as equivalent choices. The not being willing to take the sacrifices to the extreme means I might decide to do this, but that I wouldn't say the musician choice is more acceptable than the \"programmer + lots of spending money\" choice. Your approach of only sometimes applying the logic doesn't seem to maximize good done for a given level of self sacrifice.\n
\n
\nI certainly agree that having to think of \"every scone or jar of applesauce as a mosquito net I'm refusing to buy\" is a way to make yourself miserable for very little gain. It's does poorly on the \"how much good am I doing for the pain I'm causing myself\" metric.", "timestamp": 1312332853}, {"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/113533092043162478796", "anchor": "gp-1312649425265", "service": "gp", "text": "I realize I'm a little late on the commenting bandwagon here, but I'd like to add my two cents. While I think that charitable giving is a great way to make use of the money you have and/or earn, I'm not convinced that it's the best system for ensuring a more equal distribution of the world's wealth/resources (assuming something like that is the ultimate goal here). More important, to my mind, is working toward the creation of a global system that promotes social and economic equity, in which \"educated first worlders\" don't have so much more money than anyone else in the first place.", "timestamp": 1312649425}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1312668729166", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben S-H: what would you see as working towards the creation of that sort of global system?\n
\n
\nAlso, while giving does increase equity, increasing equity is not my goal. I'm ok with there being some very rich people. I just want there to stop being very poor people. It may be that increasing wealth is more practical if there are rich people, but increased total wealth means that we can improve the lives of more people. An argument that inequality is necessary for startups and so some aspect of wealth creation: \nhttp://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html", "timestamp": 1312668729}, {"author": "Pablo", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/105467680319054692970", "anchor": "gp-1330227238883", "service": "gp", "text": "@Ben\n, if one becomes a professional philanthropist, one could use one's earnings to support basically any charity--including charities campaigning to ensure that global resources are more equitably distributed. And if one is not satisfied with the charities available, one can use one's earnings to create a superior charity. 80,000 Hours, an organisation that does research on the ethics of career choice, addresses this question in their FAQ: \nhttp://80000hours.org/faq#philanthropy-faq-underlying-problems\n.", "timestamp": 1330227238}]}