Agree whole-heartedly that everyone should give more. If you find a way to give automatically (ideally from your paycheck, not your credit card) you never even feel it.
It's important to recognize that some causes are not as cost-effective as others, but are still worthy. I'll use my own donations as an example:
1. Against Malaria Foundation - widely recognized as one of the charities that can do the most for a dollar. Malaria nets cost about $2-3 and it's estimated every ~$2500 given to them saves a life from Malaria.
2. Larkin Street Youth Services - helping homeless youth in San Francisco (where I lived). A very expensive city and they provide not just housing but education, job services, medical care, etc. Helping just one full-service client can cost $40,000 a year.
I don't think giving to both of these causes makes me inconsistent. After all, no number of malaria nets in Africa can take a person off the street in San Francisco. And I want both outcomes. I believe nobody should die of malaria, and nobody should be homeless. So I give to both.
Thank you for sharing that. I think at the outset, whenever we all discuss donations, no one should be bullied or told they are doing something wrong. Helping people should be encouraged, even if there are better ways to help.
I think it's a productive discussion when those involved learn something new. My hope is always to share the counterintuitive finding that in today's world we are able to help people a tremendous amount with (relative-to-our-lives) very little financial involvement.
I hope that when people learn about this remarkable fact, they reflect on their goals and consider giving to more-cost-effective charities, and to give more overall.
I'm thrilled to hear you too give to one of GiveWell's top recommended charities!
I mean, props for donating, and I believe that you want both outcomes, but for the sake of completeness the revealed-preferences meaning of your giving patterns is that the marginal badness of a SF youth being homeless is equivalent to 16 africans dying. Like, I'm not saying that to denigrate your choices, it's just an inherent fact of donation splitting.
> Bad Reason #6: I care about multiple issues! I want to end disease so I give to an anti-disease charity, I want to end crime so I give to an anti-crime charity, and I want to end poverty so I give to an anti-poverty charity.
> Yes, we have many different values. But at any given time, one of these will be the most pressing; one of them will be easiest to make headway on. And that's the one we should concentrate on. By focusing all our resources on one cause, we have the greatest chance of accomplishing our cause.
It's not bad logic, but I don't personally buy into it. It may be easy when dividing up a pile of cash, but it's harder when you take it down to a personal level. Imagine if someone on the street says "Can you spare a dollar, I am hungry?", could you look them in the eye and say "No, I gave your dollar to end malaria in Africa. It's more effective". I certainly can't do that! And having met so many of the clients at Larkin Street and knowing how deserving they are of a better life, I can't do it to them either.
Furthermore it's a pretty slippery slope to say that every dollar I spend reveals my marginal preferences when compared to every other dollar I spend. I don't think every person who buys a new laptop for $2500 is saying they'd rather have a faster web browser than save a life from malaria. We don't expect everyone to operate that way. Spending money is a hybrid between emotion and rationality, and I think that's ok.
> I don't think every person who buys a new laptop for $2500 is saying they'd rather have a faster web browser than save a life from malaria.
So there's this thing called "revealed preferences". I have a $2000 laptop, and I was very aware when I bought it that I was saying that this laptop was more important than an african life. I don't have a moral defense for this. I think it's not so much that people don't prefer a laptop to an african child surviving - they do prefer the laptop - but they don't want to perceive themselves to be the sort of people who prefer a laptop to an african child surviving. And so they don't think about it, and get angry at you when you make them think about it. But they still act in that way.
Personally, I sort of feel I'd be a lot more ready to donate a fraction of my income to worthy causes if everyone else was willing to help as well. Maybe we need to run charities like very long term kickstarters - say "we need X trillion dollars over a span of ten years to have an even shot at wiping out Malaria forever, commit yourself to a monthly payment, payment starts once we cross the threshold." I think something like that would be better at motivating me, at least - humans are inherently more sensitive to relative local standing than absolute global effects.
It's important to recognize that some causes are not as cost-effective as others, but are still worthy. I'll use my own donations as an example:
I don't think giving to both of these causes makes me inconsistent. After all, no number of malaria nets in Africa can take a person off the street in San Francisco. And I want both outcomes. I believe nobody should die of malaria, and nobody should be homeless. So I give to both.