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The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

nytimes.com

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Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#81

Post by CPLX »

krstck wrote: post #67
jimbokun wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career." Well, it's at least worth having a discussion about. If you are in a career where you honestly think damage is being done by your activities, you need to weigh that against whatever good is being done with the money you earn and give away. What about the traders involved in the near-collapse of the global economy i…

From http://effective-altruism.com/ea/54/show_me_the_harm/ : "Finance is often taken to be the legal high earning career that’s most harmful to society. The average Goldman Sachs employee earns around $500,000 per year. If someone joined Goldman and donated half of his earnings to Against Malaria Foundation, that would be about enough to save 100 lives per year (or more accurately, saving 4000 QALYs), plus likely hav…

> "it would imply that finance is doing something as bad as causing all the deaths in the world"

It's within the realm of possibility methinks.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#82

Post by tomjen3 »

krstck wrote: post #56

From the article: > First, where do we draw the line? If we’re prepared to donate one-third of our incomes to maximize happiness, then why not two-thirds? Why not live in a tent in a park so as to be able to donate 99 percent and prevent even more cases of blindness? This is an area where the writings of Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex) have been really helpful for me. He refers to this as "Infinite Debt" ( http://…

The problem with that is that it only works if you believe that 10% makes sense. For me it doesn't - it is either 0% or whatever several 100% of my current income it would take to do my part (I don't see how not currently earning enough to repay would be enough to get me of the hook, certainly car payments are not payed in percentage of income).

Thus, for me, the only answer that makes sense is that we have no obligation to save the world, but we are allowed to donate whatever we want. Besides who says all lives have equal value?

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#83

Post by JacobLBryan »

testguy34 wrote: post #77
goodJobWalrus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Function of aid is not to cause economic growth. Function of aid is to have a child not die of malaria.

The ciriticism is that malaria is just a symptom of the larger problem of a lack of economic growth and development. Aid can save a child from malaria, but it will never solve the underlying problem.

Reducing or eradicating these diseases removes a huge burden from those in extreme poverty, it definitely is among the underlying problems that contribute to a lack of growth. It's also the most tractable.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#84

Post by enraged_camel »

jimbokun wrote: post #69
betenoire wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying it's just as easy to save/donate as it is to spend because the muscles and underlying principles are the same? I wish I'd heard about this sooner.

I was comparing saving to donating, and contrasting with spending. So the exact opposite. Was I really that unclear?

No, you were clear.

I sometimes feel that some people on HN make a real effort to misunderstand people.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#85

Post by tomjen3 »

willmacaskill wrote: post #32
bobcostas55 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empirically speaking, aid is almost completely useless[0], no matter who administers it. So whether he gives it all to the "appropriate organization" or "wastes" some of it on an aid trip is ultimately irrelevant. [0] Easterly's book is great if you're interested in the stats: http://www.amazon.com/The-Elusive-Quest-Growth-Misadventures...

That's not true. There are hundreds of thousands of different aid project, it would be miraculous if all were entirely ineffective. E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; there's just so much evidence to the contrary. In terms of the link between aid and economic growth - aid is just such a small part of developing countries' eco…

>E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value;

Their top charity for a long time was a mosquito net distribution agency. It turned out that the mosquito nets were used as fishing nets instead and, since they were treated with insecticide, polluted the local lakes.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#86

Post by xur17 »

ernestipark wrote: post #79

For those interested, one way to build this charitable muscle and lifestyle is to start a charitable trust (at least in the US). It's not just for the ultra wealthy. You can start any old investment account and commit to funding it regularly say $20/month or 1% of your salary to start. Then when you hit $5k or more you can transfer those funds to a trust you create with say Fidelity or Vanguard ($25k minimum). You ca…

I'm interested in this approach - is there any charge to create the trust? Also, I wish the minimum for Vanguard was lower - I already have an investment account with them, and this seems like a great way to get started.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#87

Post by techtivist »

I am not sure if this is really "effective altruism". When I decided to leave a high paying job to start an education startup in order to pursue my passion to make a change through education, I got similar advice. I was told it would be more "effective" to keep my job and donate the money to education related charities instead. But I realized that as an software engineer, my skills could prove much more impactful, and directly so than the relatively meagre money I could donate. As they say money is cheap. I felt, and I still feel I could amplify my impact by using my skills rather than just throwing money at the problem.

Second, I wanted to be more aware and involved in the issues I wanted to contribute to, which I couldn't do unless I dove in. There are a lot of good organization out there that are making great impact, but there are equal number of "bad" ones that are perhaps having a negative impact or are not aligned to ones values. GiveWell and CharityNavigator can only go so far.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#88

Post by rry »

tomjen3 wrote: post #85
willmacaskill wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. There are hundreds of thousands of different aid project, it would be miraculous if all were entirely ineffective. E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; there's just so much evidence to the contrary. In terms of the link between aid and economic growth - aid is just such a small part of developing countries' eco…

>E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; Their top charity for a long time was a mosquito net distribution agency. It turned out that the mosquito nets were used as fishing nets instead and, since they were treated with insecticide, polluted the local lakes.

It turns out that the nets in question came from net distributors with shoddy follow-up practices; GiveWell suggested Against Malaria instead of other distributors in part because they saw this issue years ago.

http://blog.givewell.org/2015/02/05/putting-the-problem-of-b... https://www.againstmalaria.com/NewsItem.aspx?newsitem=Net-us...

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#89

Post by MaulingMonkey »

jimbokun wrote: post #69
betenoire wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying it's just as easy to save/donate as it is to spend because the muscles and underlying principles are the same? I wish I'd heard about this sooner.

I was comparing saving to donating, and contrasting with spending. So the exact opposite. Was I really that unclear?

I did have to read bch's sub-reply to grok the metaphor. I'm not sure why.
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