[uplifter]

Why is 10% per month optimal? Does it vary with the possible harm of the actions taken to fund it? It would seem that at some risk level it should exceed the likely benefits, but I'm struggling with the calculus. I wasn't familiar with EA until the FTX meltdown brought it into discussion here.

[eddsh1994]

10% I believe was originally an arbitrary rounded number that shouldn't have too bad an impact on someone. It's not novel, by any means, as you can see Islam advocating similar with Zakat! The novel part of EA was analyzing the outcome of charities based on research to ensure it actually improves lives in a quantifiable way. A great example of why this is useful is [0], which tl;dr was a highly funded waterpump dressed up like a childs toy to replace manual pumps in Africa where kids could play and water would be brought up to the surface. The issues were numerous as explained in that post! Now look at an EA-aligned org called Givewell [1] and what sort of research they do to find the most 'effective' charities where that is lives saved (or formally, Quality Adjusted Life Years) per dollar assuming all lives are equal (if $1000 saves a life in Ethiopia compared to $10000 in the US, saving 10 lives is more 'effective' roughly speaking). That's the core gist of EA. It's not re-skinned utilitarianism, it's not some crazy plot to get rich, it's analyzing charitable giving like you would an investment. There are then groups like Giving What We Can that advocate one should donate a percentage of their salary to these charities and the outcome is you might save more lives working as a developer in the Bay Area than a nurse, over your 40 year career (instead of being a nurse yourself you could fund 10 nurses in Nigeria, for example).

[0] https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/P9XEtnHFQF24HCC8v/...

[1] https://www.givewell.org/

[uplifter]

Thank you for elaborating. I appreciate the thoughtful approach to effectiveness, no pun intended. I guess I'm was just concerned with the risk of cargo-cultism where an arbitrary target like 10% of income donated to charity can become the goal in itself rather than a means to an end. That is a risk with any system I supposed, including many traditional religions and their ethical frameworks, and I was curious about tenets or axioms within EA to mitigate that risk.

[eddsh1994]

That’s fair! The 10% Giving What We Can is a minority of EA in general, specifically people who subscribe to the idea of “Earning to Give”. There are other ideas too, such as people who argue working in nuclear policy is important, or AI Alignment research, or one of my favorites Allfed [0]. Personally for me, a non-degree holding individual who would still like to use my career to benefit others, donating a chunk of my pay check to charities saving the most lives is my form of ‘effective altruism’.

[0] https://allfed.info/