tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66443583914683318712024-03-13T12:51:08.911-04:00Giving GladlyAltruism and the good lifeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-44652053875643225992022-01-28T02:46:00.001-05:002022-01-28T03:28:11.463-05:00Writing at a new blog<br />I'm writing in a new space! <a href="https://juliawise.net/">https://juliawise.net/</a><br /><br />The main topics are effective altruism and parenting. I'm hoping to explore how EAs balance pursuing big goals and other parts of their lives.<br /><br />I always intended Giving Gladly to have material that's accessible to people first getting interested in effective giving and effective altruism, but these days most of my thoughts on these are about people who are already involved in the EA community. I may still update this blog occasionally, but I expect most of my writing about EA to be at the new blog.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-67314700970278171142020-01-27T16:48:00.001-05:002021-05-15T22:27:27.603-04:00It's ok to feed stray catsBefore we had kids, Jeff and I fostered a couple of cats. One had feline AIDS and was very skinny. Despite our frugal grocery budget of the time, I put olive oil on her food, determined to get her healthier. I knew that stray cats were not a top global priority, and that this wasn’t even the best way of helping stray cats, but it was what I wanted to do.<br />
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. . . . .<br />
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The bike path near where I live has a lot of broken glass on the ground nearby. My family likes to go barefoot in the summer, and a lot of people walk their dogs there. Last summer I started bringing a container when we went out and cleaning a patch of ground each time. Picking up glass gave me something a little goal-oriented to do while the kids were playing. The kids got excited about spotting pieces of glass and pointing them out to me. Neighbors would stop and join me for a while. <br />
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. . . . .<br />
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I don’t want to hold these up as an example of impact. They’re not, or at least not examples of any important impact. I think there are way too many narratives encouraging people to practice small acts of kindness that produce equally small benefits. Women especially may be encouraged to see their life’s impact as resting on their service to friends, family, and local community.<br />
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That’s why I felt kind of worried to find myself engaging in these small acts. I want people to look at the big picture and <a href="http://www.givinggladly.com/2014/10/aim-high-even-if-you-fall-short.html">aim high</a>. If you’ve been taught that “doing your part” meant recycling and a bit of volunteering, you’ll need to find something more ambitious if you want to make a bigger difference.<br />
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But it can be painful to stare at the scale of the world’s problems, and I don’t recommend doing it all the time. Not every part of your life will be optimized for maximum altruistic impact.<br />
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Some of those small acts can be pretty satisfying. Humans do best when we’re in connection with other humans. And we feel mastery when we have small goals that we can meet. Doing your best for a stray cat, bringing the snacks to a game night, going to a rally, or helping a neighbor restart their car are achievable in a way that “reduce the risk of nuclear war” is not. They also strengthen your relationships with those around you. <br />
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(One year when my coworkers and I were preparing for the EA Global conference, one of our speakers went for a walk in Oakland and was gone for a surprisingly long time. It turned out someone had flagged him down and asked him to help move her furniture. He said it was refreshing to spend half an hour doing something so obviously not the best use of his time.)<br />
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As <a href="https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/omoZDu8ScNbot6kXS/beware-surprising-and-suspicious-convergence">Gregory Lewis argues</a>, it’s unlikely that any one action is going to be optimal for all your goals. The food that’s tastiest is unlikely to also be the most nutritious and also the most ethically produced. So you might need to make some tradeoffs, and acknowledge that both chocolate and dark leafy greens are good, but not for the same things.<br />
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Prioritize big problems. Spend a good chunk of your money and/or your time working on them.<br />
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But in your other time, do what’s refreshing and restorative to you. Some of that will be purely hedonic — sleeping in, music, cake. And some might be small acts of kindness that make your day brighter, even though they’re not saving the world.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-86821978141886102262019-02-19T08:43:00.000-05:002019-02-19T08:49:00.007-05:00You have more than one goal, and that's fineWhen people come to an effective altruism event for the first time, the conversation often turns to projects they’re pursuing or charities they donate to. They often have a sense of nervousness around this, a feeling that the harsh light of cost-effectiveness is about to be turned on everything they do. To be fair, this is a reasonable thing to be apprehensive about, because many youngish people in EA do in fact have this idea that everything in life should be governed by cost-effectiveness. I've been there.<br />
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Cost-effectiveness analysis is a very useful tool. I wish more people and institutions applied it to more problems. But like any tool, this tool will not be applicable to all parts of your life. Not everything you do is in the “effectiveness” bucket. I don't even know what that would look like.<br />
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I have lots of goals. I have a goal of improving the world. I have a goal of enjoying time with my children. I have a goal of being a good spouse. I have a goal of feeling connected in my friendships and community. Those are all fine goals, but they’re not the same. I have some rough plan for allocating time and money between them: Sunday morning is for making pancakes for my kids. Monday morning is for work. It doesn’t make sense to mix these activities, to spend time with my kids in a way that contributes to my work or to do my job in a way that my kids enjoy.<br />
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If I donate to my friend’s fundraiser for her sick uncle, I’m pursuing a goal. But it’s the goal of “support my friend and our friendship,” not my goal of “make the world as good as possible.” When I make a decision, it’s better if I’m clear about which goal I’m pursuing. I don’t have to beat myself up about this money not being used for optimizing the world — that was never the point of that donation. That money is coming from my "personal satisfaction" budget, along with getting coffee with my friend.<br />
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I have another pot of money set aside for donating as effectively as I can. When I'm deciding what to do with that money, I turn on that bright light of cost-effectiveness and try make as much progress as I can on the world’s problems. That involves looking at the research on different interventions and choosing what I think will do the most to bring humanity forward in our struggle against pointless suffering, illness, and death. The best cause I can find usually ends up being one that I didn’t previously have any personal connection to, and that doesn’t nicely connect with my personal life. And that’s fine, because personal meaning-making is not my goal here. I can look for personal meaning in the decision afterward, but that's not what drives the decision.<br />
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When you make a decision, be clear with yourself about which goals you’re pursuing. You don’t have to argue that your choice is the best way of improving the world if that isn’t actually the goal. It’s fine to support your local arts organization because their work gives you joy, because you want to be active in your community, or because they helped you and you want to reciprocate. If you also have a goal of improving the world as much as you can, decide how much time and money you want to allocate to that goal, and try to use that as effectively as you can.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-87428763767459085362018-10-10T15:57:00.000-04:002018-10-10T18:10:58.300-04:00No one is a statisticI’m late to the party, but I've been thinking about the documentary “<a href="http://lifeequationinteractive.com/">The Life Equation</a>” about how people use data to decide make life-and-death decisions. The central example is a woman named Crecencia, a mother of seven who lives in rural Guatemala and has cervical cancer. The doctor treating her knows that screening other women for cancer is more cost-effective than treating this woman, and that the community doesn’t have enough money to fully fund both. <br />
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The filmmaker writes: “Crecencia’s life depends on decisions made by doctors and donors, decisions increasingly driven by Big Data. It’s a scientific, evidence-based approach that cuts through the emotion and promises to transform the lives of hundreds of millions. But who, and what, gets lost in the number crunching?”<br />
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The film is touching, depicting Crecencia’s prayers for healing, her relationship with her children, her fervent wish to stay alive. It asks how her doctor should decide between this individual patient and “statistics.” <br />
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Here’s the thing about those “statistics”: they’re all individuals. <br />
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The other women who don’t get screened, whose cancer isn’t caught in time? They’re people too. They have families. They want to stay alive too.<br />
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We’re more likely to help a person if we can see their face and know their name (sometimes called the “identifiable victim bias.”) People will actually <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/New-Research-Sheds-Light-on/163459">give more money</a> if they’re told it’s going to one child than to two children.<br />
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Animal advocates now consider it best practice to communicate about individual animals rather than undifferentiated masses of them. My brain has an easier time thinking about <a href="https://www.thedodo.com/on-the-farm/piglet-rescued-farm">Lily the rescue piglet</a> than about the 769 million pigs being raised around the world. <br />
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I think it’s fine to work with this reality of human thinking, and present examples of who will benefit from particular interventions. But we also need to examine our intuitions and realize that, even if we haven’t been presented with an individual example, effective interventions matter because they affect more individual people.<br />
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Every person in the world has their own oddities, preferences, and sense of humor. Everyone started as a baby, most with parents who memorized the swirl of hair on their scalp and the scent of their skin. Even people who aren’t born yet - if they come into being, they will have freckles, fears, favorite songs. <br />
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I think Christians are onto something in talking about people as “souls” rather than “population.” It helps our glitchy human minds see the worth of the whole by focusing on the worth of the parts.<br />
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The multitudes matter because each of us matters. No one is a statistic, but statistics are how we help more irreplaceable individuals.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-29303533545408132532016-12-30T07:03:00.001-05:002016-12-30T07:03:31.363-05:00Two standard donations and one new one<br />
Here are three places Jeff and I are donating this year. The first two are similar to what we’ve been doing for years, and the third represents a change.<br />
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<b>Direct work</b><br />
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Jeff and I want to support work that directly makes the world a better place. (Some arguments against falling into a “meta trap” <a href="http://effective-altruism.com/ea/my/ea_risks_falling_into_a_meta_trap_but_we_can/">here</a>.) As usual for us, this year we’ve given just over half our donations to direct work. We made these donations to the <a href="http://www.givewell.org/charities/against-malaria-foundation">Against Malaria Foundation</a>, one of <a href="http://www.givewell.org/">GiveWell</a>’s top picks, except for small amounts that were part of a matching fundraiser and a giving game we did at a workshop.<br />
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<b>Meta-charity</b><br />
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We think helping effective altruism grow will ultimately be very good for direct work. If a new person hears about EA and decides to go into a more impactful career, to donate to better charities, or to start donating more, then a lot more good is getting done! By encouraging new people to do these things, you can multiply the impact that you would have alone. So we give around half our donations to movement-building work.<br />
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In the past we’ve typically given to the <a href="https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/">Centre for Effective Altruism</a>. We still think that’s one of several good choices for people interested in supporting movement growth, but there were a few reasons we leaned away from it this year:<br />
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<ul>
<li>I work there, and it’s hard to neutrally evaluate your own employer.</li>
<li>There are various complications when staff <a href="http://effective-altruism.com/ea/14b/should_effective_altruism_have_a_norm_against/">donate to their employers</a>, and I think it’s probably best to discourage it.</li>
<li>We don’t know much about the best breakdown for what the different meta-charity organizations should get, and we’d like to coordinate with other donors. (Imagine everyone thought Meta Org A and Meta Org B were about equally good, but thought Meta Org B needed the money a little more, so everyone donated to them, leaving Meta Org A with nothing. That would be bad.)</li>
<li>There may be excellent new meta-charity organizations or projects just starting up that we haven’t heard of, and aren’t likely to hear of in the limited number of hours we plan to put into a donation decision.</li>
</ul>
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So this year we’re donating to the EA Giving Group Fund run by Nick Beckstead, as described in his section of <a href="http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/09/staff-members-personal-donations-giving-season-2016/">this post</a>. Nick spends a lot more time on charity evaluation than we do, we believe his values are similar to ours, and we have a lot of faith in his judgement. Together with other donors, we’ll be funding a variety of meta-charity organizations and projects that he recommends. This may include CEA or its projects, but I feel better having that decision one step removed from me.<br />
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<b>And one more thing</b><br />
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After we had already tallied up how much we expected to earn and then donated half of it, I found a check that I had forgotten to deposit. And I decided to do something different with it, something I’d been thinking about for a while but hadn’t fully made up my mind about. (Jeff thinks differently about this topic than I do, so while our other donations were joint, this one was just from me.)<br />
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Since spending more time with people who believe animal welfare is one of the biggest problems of our time, I’m more persuaded than I was that they’re right. Our food system depends on billions of creatures living in horrifying conditions. <br />
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If you believe animals' experiences matter, there are a lot of approaches you might take. You could persuade people to stop eating animal products (note that just cutting out meat isn’t necessarily helpful, as <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/7/31/9067651/eggs-chicken-effective-altruism">eggs cause a lot more suffering</a> than most meats.) You could support work to <a href="http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/campaigns/factory_farming/?referrer=https://www.google.com/">improve farming conditions</a>. You could support campaigns that aim to <a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/approach/prioritizing-causes/causes-we-consider/#general-animal-rights">change how people view animals</a> and cause them to care more. You could develop better <a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/approach/prioritizing-causes/causes-we-consider/#meat-alternatives">replacements</a> for animal products. Or you could support <a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/">research</a> on how to do all of this better.<br />
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One thing that seems odd to me is that the precursor to any of this seems to be going vegan or at least vegetarian. I don’t think I know anyone who donates to animal causes and also eats meat.<br />
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Maybe this is to be expected — isn’t it hypocritical to care about animals and yet still eat their corpses? And yet none of us is perfectly consistent. I care deeply about global poverty, but I don’t make every conceivable change to my lifestyle that would better support the global poor. I think holding ourselves to high standards of consistency can actually be <a href="http://www.givinggladly.com/2014/10/aim-high-even-if-you-fall-short.html">really bad</a>, because it encourages us to give up if we’re not perfectly consistent.<br />
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Some people find dietary change relatively easy, but others (for reasons of health, convenience, cost, and/or taste) don’t. I’m one of them. It’s not out of ignorance — I was vegetarian for a decade, lived in a vegan house for two years, and currently cook vegan food on a regular basis for my housemates. I just don’t much like a vegan diet, and don’t want the added hassle of getting my kids a balanced diet while cutting out their main sources of protein and fat. I realize some people will find this morally indefensible, but I don’t have plans to change it.<br />
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So I’m donating (not all that much, but something) to make the world closer to what I want to see in this area.<br />
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I would love to be able to buy a good replacement for eggs, milk, or meat in my grocery store. (I realize there are attempts at this, but I’m not impressed with what’s currently on the market.) And I have a lot more faith in people’s ability to stop buying animal products if they have good alternatives. So I’ve donated to <a href="http://www.new-harvest.org/">New Harvest</a>, which is developing ways to grow meat, milk, and egg tissue without animals. <br />
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I hope this will encourage others to think about donating outside their usual areas. I don’t want certain causes to only be for certain people — you shouldn’t need to be a computer programmer to care about artificial intelligence safety, and you shouldn’t need to change your diet to help animals. There are good reasons why not everyone will do those things, but it shouldn’t cut them off from supporting those causes in other ways.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-64009341459247928372016-06-15T12:28:00.002-04:002016-06-15T12:28:39.067-04:00Practical steps for self-careLast week the Boston Effective Altruism group had a discussion on self-care for altruists. I've written about the topic <a href="http://www.givinggladly.com/2015/10/burnout-and-self-care.html">before</a>, but I wanted to share some of the more practical advice people had. <br />
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<b>Think beyond day-to-day choices</b><br />
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Self-care isn’t just short-term decisions like whether to make time for yoga tonight. It’s larger life decisions too, like what job to take, where to live, how to budget money, and how to make time for partners, friends, and family.<br />
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For me, <a href="http://www.givinggladly.com/2013/06/cheerfully.html">having children was self-care</a>. I might spend a day doing nothing but 1) work, 2) care for my kids, and 3) sleep. There’s no “me time” there in the sense of meditation or bubble baths. But the two very different kinds of work are a break from each other. After taking care of my kids for a while it’s nice to sit at a desk and have a break from The Cat in the Hat, and after sitting at a desk all day it’s nice to be with my children instead. (Life with kids is not everyone's idea of a good time, and it absolutely does take time away from my other work. I don't want to minimize this.)<br />
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<b>Make lists</b><br />
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One person works for an organization that publishes a list of mistakes made by the organization (not typos, but medium-to-large mistakes). They said when they do something wrong at work, there’s some satisfaction in adding it to the list before anybody else catches it. That way when someone else points it out, you at least have the pleasure of feeling that you were proactive in adding it to the collection before someone else caught it.<br />
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Several people also said they keep lists of praise they’ve received or accomplishments they’re proud of.<br />
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<b>Be careful with comparisons</b><br />
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The effective altruism movement attracts a lot of ridiculously smart people. I find it easy to feel gloomy about not being as smart as I’d like. But as one group member put it last week, “It’s not about whether I can be the sharpest tool out there, but about how I can make myself sharper.” (<a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/02/01/talents-part-2-attitude-vs-altitude/">This post</a> about how basketball is like intelligence was helpful to me; feeling bad for not being smart enough is like feeling bad for not being 7 feet tall.)<br />
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Someone else pointed out that different people need different amounts and kinds of self-care, and that using other people's standards isn't helpful. If you need more hours of sleep or more time away from work than your coworker does, that means nothing about how good a person you are. It just means you need something different than they do.<br />
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<b>Step out of your own shoes</b><br />
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I also try to act on advice that I would give other people. Several years ago I was emailing with a younger woman who was trying to figure out how to get more involved in effective altruism. It made me think out what general choices I thought were good ones, particularly in terms of balance between change-the-world effort and take-care-of-yourself effort. When I’m trying to decide something for myself (should I go to this conference even though it’s expensive?) I think about what I would advise a young effective altruist to do.<br />
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<b>Consider the long term</b><br />
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This cuts two ways. First, think in terms of a marathon rather than a sprint. Make choices that will sustain you in your efforts over the long term rather than giving up after a few years. This may mean treating yourself with more care than you're otherwise inclined to.<br />
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But also consider the precedent you’re setting. If you decide to stop work an hour early today, you’ll probably do the same on future days with similar circumstances. Ask if this is actually a special case, or if it’s the kind of thing that’s likely to repeat often. (It may still be the right thing to do if it turns out you need a shorter work day in general to be functional, but see it as a long-term pattern and not just a one-time choice.)<br />
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What other practical tips do you have?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-43035474728991151172015-12-16T13:00:00.000-05:002015-12-16T13:02:01.229-05:00Why I pledgedAlmost four years ago, I pledged with <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/">Giving What We Can</a>. Members pledge 10% of their incomes to the best charities they can find (with students and those with no income pledging 1% of their spending money).<br />
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In the time since, I've felt good about making this commitment. I like having it as part of my routine, something that I know is part of my plan in the years to come. It's a confirmation of what I value—a safe and healthy life not just for me and mine, but for all families around the world. And I've enjoyed the connections with other people who have made this choice.<br />
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I'm also a fan of mini-pledges for people who aren't sure about their long-term plan. For a year, or a month, or a semester, make a plan for how much you will donate. See what it's like. Afterwards, maybe it will feel like a good amount. Maybe you'll realize you want to cut back on giving next time. (Jeff and I did that the year we forgot about taxes when making our budget!) Or maybe you'll decide you want to ramp up to something more ambitious. In any case, you'll learn something about how you handle money, and you'll be acting intentionally instead of haphazardly. If you want, you can sign up for "<a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/try-giving/">Try Giving</a>" on the Giving What We Can site.<br />
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The <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge/">pledge</a>. <br />
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This year I'll be giving largely to the <a href="https://www.againstmalaria.com/">Against Malaria Foundation</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-53002007636004450652015-11-19T13:11:00.002-05:002015-11-19T17:23:33.460-05:00An embarrassment of richesPeople interested in effective altruism come from many different backgrounds. I know people whose families expected them to become lawyers or businesspeople, and others whose families would be appalled if they went into something so "money-grubbing."<br />
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This post is primarily aimed at those of us who grew up in cultures that emphasized a certain style of simplicity. In some cases I think it can be an advantage, for example, because it's easier to live below our means. But in other cases I think it leads us into bad decisions that prioritize our personal purity above the well-being of others.<br />
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....<br />
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I'll start with an illustration from history. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams">Jane Addams</a>, the founder of social work, spent her life striving to improve the conditions of poor immigrants and particularly working-class women in Chicago. In 1896, she traveled to Russia to meet with author Leo Tolstoy, whose ideas on solidarity with laborers had impressed her. Both Addams and Tolstoy struggled with how to deal with their privileged backgrounds; Tolstoy was a count and Addams had inherited a fortune as a young woman. Tolstoy, who was living on his family's estate dressing like a peasant and participating in the farm work, began the meeting by criticizing Addams' stylish dress. He urged her to follow him in taking up manual labor rather than spending all her time on administration.<br />
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When Addams returned to the large settlement house she ran, she was determined to spend part of her workday in the bakery there rather than in her office. (Reminds me of the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Boss">Undercover Boss</a></i> reality show in which CEOs work as janitors for two weeks.)<br />
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But she grew frustrated with the inefficiency of spending part of her day as baker rather than director. “The half dozen people invariably waiting to see me after breakfast, the piles of letters to be opened and answered, the demand of actual and pressing human wants—were these all to be pushed aside and asked to wait while I saved my soul by two hours’ work at baking bread?” (<i>Twenty Years at Hull House</i>, p. 197) She decided that she could do more for her neighbors by continuing her administrative work than by sharing in their manual labor.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfOLolV6PCQ11Z-ph3a_HlltJxMTTv3H9bhG4i0tyczfj-jU6bBcvQZhRNFuhKcXArV6wI6j2UsBHY62hsnPzLsuanR86NzmRJ7TMtne3B6HLjSmFhqF70sfwc7TZ_V9WqXa8CPUlsF8/s1600/Ilya_Repin_-_Leo_Tolstoy_Barefoot_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfOLolV6PCQ11Z-ph3a_HlltJxMTTv3H9bhG4i0tyczfj-jU6bBcvQZhRNFuhKcXArV6wI6j2UsBHY62hsnPzLsuanR86NzmRJ7TMtne3B6HLjSmFhqF70sfwc7TZ_V9WqXa8CPUlsF8/s320/Ilya_Repin_-_Leo_Tolstoy_Barefoot_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="112" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2jCtNZ2OcR4Mt8WNNW9wc94tpo2jvkJV7euRa2X8S-1HVGFAP9mkzsG15GlPh2lTvGY97VWkO_k9eMYdiUmbt6c11uRwM48hyphenhyphenI9zgnpFzh0YPJyHI3ZJHAgJ9cyOHZGsnrSoIsKlIYE/s1600/JAMC_0000_0005_1437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2jCtNZ2OcR4Mt8WNNW9wc94tpo2jvkJV7euRa2X8S-1HVGFAP9mkzsG15GlPh2lTvGY97VWkO_k9eMYdiUmbt6c11uRwM48hyphenhyphenI9zgnpFzh0YPJyHI3ZJHAgJ9cyOHZGsnrSoIsKlIYE/s320/JAMC_0000_0005_1437.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />
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I think Addams gets at an ongoing problem with tendencies to <i>act or appear</i> a certain way rather than <i>accomplishing</i> anything in particular. (Certainly leftists and liberals are not the only ones to fall into this, but I'll focus on us here.)<br />
<br />
Tracy Kidder's <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=B_wxkzFvHf8C&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=poor+people+don%27t+want+you+to+dress+like+them&source=bl&ots=ZcQ5X9IE1d&sig=sREUwIv7y8aAkf_vXDS1xio4m1g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDAQ6AEwA2oVChMIsbGGx4aYyQIVCHo-Ch1xnQ0v#v=onepage&q=poor%20people%20don't%20want%20you%20to%20dress%20like%20them&f=false">book</a> about doctor and humanitarian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer">Paul Farmer</a> cites him talking with other Partners in Health staff about "the goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water."<br />
<br />
I have a friend who gives away much of his income but realized he needed to spend money on a nice suit to meet with people who care about that sort of thing and influence their giving. "Saving" money by not buying a suit would actually have been a loss for the people he intends to help.<br />
<br />
.....<br />
<br />
Some of us come from religious traditions that emphasize voluntary simplicity and solidarity with the poor. I'm interested in the ways that this can help or hinder us in actually helping others.<br />
<br />
I've enjoyed reading some of the thoughts of a Franciscan friar on <a href="http://breakinginthehabit.org/2012/07/11/solidarity-with-the-poor/">voluntary poverty</a>. The Franciscan order was founded largely in response to the opulent lifestyle of the 13th-century Italian upper classes, and material simplicity has been an important part of their tradition ever since. But the writer, Brother Casey Cole, questions whether friars should take solidarity so far as to shoulder the difficulties that come with being <i>involuntarily </i>poor, like buying low-quality appliances that break because you can't afford ones that last longer.<br />
<br />
I spent 10 years active in Quaker communities, a tradition which emphasizes simplicity. The main text of each regional Quaker group includes "queries," or questions for reflection, on many topics. One group asks:<br />
<ul><li>Is your life marked by simplicity?</li>
<li>Are you free from the burden of unnecessary possessions?</li>
<li>Do you refuse to let the prevailing culture and media dictate your needs and values?</li>
</ul><div style="text-align: right;"><i>2003 Faith and Practice of Northwest Yearly Meeting</i></div><br />
I love this approach to simplicity as freedom. Other than my <a href="http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/">Apartment Therapy</a> habit, I think Jeff and I have been much happier by not letting media dictate our desires too much. Particularly as a parent, I'm wary of the ways we can be led into "needing" things that don't actually improve our quality of life.<br />
<br />
But I've also seen the idea of material simplicity extended farther than I think makes sense. At one point Quakers were going around policing the width of each other's hat brims lest somebody have one that was not "plain" enough. And today I think people sometimes slip into policing material possessions, particularly technology, rather than looking at whether these possessions actually improve our lives.<br />
<br />
I know people who still look down at smartphones as an unnecessary luxury. As a person who takes public transit, getting a smartphone has changed the way I travel—there's much less getting lost, less rushing to catch a bus only to find it's running late. This material possession makes my life simpler and better. (I notice Brother Cole, quoted above, said his laptop and iPhone are the material possessions most important to him.)<br />
<br />
I've seen <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/09/10/no-cellphones-are-not-a-luxury-for-syrian-refugees/">articles</a> explaining why so many refugees carry smart phones—far from being a luxury, they are a vital source of information and connection to loved ones. Cell phone ownership even among the very poor in Africa has made it possible for them to do everything from <a href="https://10innovations.alumniportal.com/africas-mobile-revolution/a-mobile-banking-system.html">transferring money</a> without access to a brick-and-mortar bank, to <a href="https://10innovations.alumniportal.com/africas-mobile-revolution/agriculture-and-health-care-mobile-changes.html">tracking</a> cattle gestation periods, to <a href="https://10innovations.alumniportal.com/africas-mobile-revolution/agriculture-and-health-care-mobile-changes.html">verifying</a> that anti-malarial drugs are real and not counterfeit. The way that technology enriches lives from Syria to San Francisco is something I'd like to embrace, not scorn.<br />
<br />
.....<br />
<br />
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, gave his sermon "<a href="http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-50-The-Use-of-Money">The Use of Money</a>" many times throughout the 18th century. In it, he advises followers not to reject money, but to use it wisely. "The fault does not lie in the money, but in them that use it. It may be used ill: and what may not? But it may likewise be used well. . . . By it we may supply. . . a defence for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain."<br />
<br />
Wesley urges followers to "gain all you can" without sacrificing their health or engaging in immoral action, "save all you can" by living simply, and then "give all you can." The sermon is the first known proposal of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earning_to_give">earning to give</a>."<br />
<br />
.....<br />
<br />
But those of us who came from traditions emphasizing simplicity (whether via religion or general hippie culture) were often taught to distrust money. "Money is the root of all evil," we heard, rather than the full <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+6%3A10&version=KJV">quotation</a> "The <i>love of money</i> is the root of all evil."<br />
<br />
My mother spoke proudly of the low-paying professions her family tended toward: "Farmers, ministers, teachers, musicians—if it pays badly, we've done it!"<br />
<br />
When I started to consider <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earning_to_give">earning to give</a> (earning more in order to donate more), I kept noticing a reaction of disgust to the idea of having a high-paid job. I couldn't get away from my vision of "rich people" as bad and greedy people. The idea of being associated with them, for example by going into law and then donating most of my earnings, turned my stomach. That attitude isn't helpful, and I don't want to pass it on to my children.<br />
<br />
I think some of this comes from embarrassment about the privilege I have. I grew up in a rich country with parents who could give me everything I needed. I have a college education, I'm healthy, and I'm able to do many things I set my mind to. I got lucky in a lot of ways, and I'm sad that not everyone has these things.<br />
<br />
But squandering this privilege by pretending I don't have it would <i>not help anyone except me</i>. It might make me feel better, but me feeling better about my privilege is not the point. I could be a good hippie and spend my days volunteering at the local library and my evenings making pottery in my basement. No one could accuse me of making things worse, but I would hardly be making things <i>better</i> for people in extreme need. I think we should be less like the ascetic Tolstoy barefoot in the woods, and more like Jane Addams using her wealth, connections, education, and skills for the benefit of others.<br />
<br />
If we want to make a better and fairer world for everyone, we should use every tool we have—including money—to do so.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-91224999767288939382015-10-22T15:25:00.001-04:002015-11-05T09:37:13.120-05:00Burnout and self-careI think effective altruism often runs into questions about self-care and boundaries, and might have a few things to learn from social work.<br />
<br />
For people in helping professions (like nurses, therapists, and clergy), training programs often warn against burnout and "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion_fatigue">compassion fatigue</a>." To prevent this, training emphasizes self-care. Self-care might include exercise, sleep, spending time with loved ones, spiritual practice, hobbies, and (at least among my coworkers) the latest episode of "Scandal." My workplace asks every prospective hire about self-care, because we want someone who has a plan for not burning out.<br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /> As a helping professional, you maintain boundaries to protect both yourself (you do not tell clients where you live) and clients (you do not burden them with your personal problems). And often boundaries are something you maintain to keep yourself sane.<br />
<br />
One early lesson for me, when I was an intern at a psychiatric hospital, came while sitting and talking with a young patient before I left for the evening. When it was time to catch my bus home, I told him I had to leave. "You get to go home," he said sadly, "but I don't get to go home." I felt awful for him, and later I asked my supervisor if I should have kept him company a little longer. "No," my supervisor said, "Go home when it's time to go home. There will <i>always</i> be someone who wants you to stay. You can't come in here and do a good job if you're worn out from the day before."<br />
<br />
To me, that's an example of what one <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fHqQAgAAQBAJ&dq=boundaries+and+self-care&lr=">author</a> on burnout calls "boundaried generosity." I will give my best up until this point, and then I will stop. That's what makes high-intensity, compassionate work sustainable.<br />
<br />
The same principles are applicable to helping work that isn't face-to-face. I've noticed that some of the highest-achieving people I know in effective altruism take sleep pretty seriously and don't skimp in that area. They've learned it's not worth it. They also seem to genuinely enjoy their time off. Unlike Susan Wolf's specter of the "<a href="http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/susanwolfessay1982.pdf">moral saint</a>," humorless and single-minded, these people know how to have fun.<br />
<br />
But younger people in particular seem to struggle with the balance of self-care and altruism. Often after I speak to a student group, someone will tell me they wonder if they're wrong to spend money traveling to visit far-away friends or buying things for the mother that scrimped to send them to college. It's hard to think of a better recipe for burnout than distancing yourself from friends and family! No, I don't recommend cutting out this kind of thing if you want your passion for helping others to last more than a few years.<br />
<br />
For me, this was an important reason to make a budget rather than asking "Should I donate this money instead?" every time I was in a checkout line. It was the equivalent of going to work with no plan about when to go home<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;">—</span>should I see one more client this afternoon? Three? Five?<br />
<br />
Knowing I'm leaving work after 8 hours lets me be whole-hearted in my work during that time. In the same way, having a budget allows me to be whole-hearted both in what I give (because I know that money is only for giving) and in what I spend (because I know that money is only for me and my family).<br />
<br />
It is okay to take care of yourself. In fact, it's a really bad idea not to.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-32347889602161074582015-10-15T14:28:00.002-04:002015-12-15T14:26:31.490-05:00Sample menus for EA gatherings<i>This post focuses specifically on food ideas. For more on how to host an effective altruism meetup, see <a href="http://effective-altruism.com/ea/a6/outreaching_effective_altruism_locally_resources/">here</a> or <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cMyRqIwnPB_dBCEOkcueF2aQ67q9VbOPpY-JJzsLq3A/edit">here</a>.</i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">After four years of hosting effective altruism dinners, I keep learning things.</span><br />
<ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">At least where I live, EA gatherings tend to attract a lot of vegetarians and vegans. I've basically stopped serving meat at these dinners </span>because<span style="font-family: inherit;"> so few people ate it.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">People, particularly students, appreciate a home-cooked meal even if it's not fancy.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: inherit;">Store-bought<span style="font-family: inherit;"> bread and some kind of stew is an easy way to go. You either need bowls or plates with a rim that will keep the stew in place. If you don't have enough or don't want to do that many dishes, you could use disposable dishes. I host dinners often enough that I bought a lot of Pyrex <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pyrex-Bakeware-Custard-Cups-10-Ounce/dp/B0000CF3UR">custard cups</a> to use as soup or desssert bowls for the masses (they don't take up the whole plate, so there's room for your bread or salad as well).</span></li>
<li style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Test-driving the main dish is a good idea so you know about how many people it serves, etc.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Make more than you think you need, at least of a few central dishes.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Newer hosts often forget things (are there cups and something to drink? Utensils? Napkins or something to clean up the inevitable spill? Is there enough toilet paper in the bathroom?)</span></li>
</ul><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summer menu</span><br />
<ul style="line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none;"><li><a href="http://vegetarian.about.com/od/sidevegetabledishes/r/tofuspringrolls.htm" style="line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #743399; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fresh spring rolls </span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/peanut-dipping-sauce-383691" style="line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #743399; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peanut dipping sauce</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://ohmyveggies.com/recipe-thai-red-curry-soup/" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red curry coconut soup with mushrooms and tofu</a></li>
<li><a href="http://food52.com/blog/12261-how-to-make-key-lime-pie" style="line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #743399; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Key lime pie</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/coconut-lime-ice-pops" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">Coconut-lime popsicles</a></li>
</ul><ul></ul>Cost when I made it: $5/person.<br />
<br />
Everything is vegan and gluten-free except the key lime pie, but I think it comes off as light and summery rather than restricted.<br />
<br />
The food is served cold and can be prepped in advance except the soup, which could still be done in advance and just heated and garnished at the last minute. If you’re still working on the spring rolls when guests arrive, people like helping assemble them. This took longer than I thought, about 90 seconds per roll, including waiting for the wrappers to soak and finding room for trays as we filled them. Do the math and leave yourself enough time. <br />
<br />
<b>Fall menu</b><br />
<ul><li><a href="http://cookieandkate.com/2013/west-african-peanut-soup/">West African Peanut Stew</a></li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Store-bought bread</li>
<li>Apple crisp (<a href="http://hellyeahitsvegan.com/vegan-apple-crisp/">vegan</a> or <a href="http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/3452698-Apple-Crisp">not vegan</a>)</li>
</ul>Cost when I made it: $3.80/person.<br />
<br />
The problem with having the protein and vegetables all in one stew is that if someone can’t eat peanuts or one of the vegetables, they can’t eat the main dish.<br />
<br />
<b>Winter menu</b><br />
<ul><li><a href="http://bakeoff-flunkie.blogspot.com/2010/02/making-perfect-polenta.html">Polenta</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/dinner-party-recipe-braised-beef-in-tomatoes-red-wine-recipes-from-the-kitchn-186550" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Braised beef with tomatoes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/cannellini-bean-and-escarole-soup" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">White bean stew</a></li>
<li><a href="http://abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/braised-kale-mario-batali" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Braised kale</a></li>
<li>Vanilla ice cream with cherry-wine sauce (just heat up some frozen cherries in red wine with a little sugar)</li>
</ul>Gleaned from <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/party-plan-an-italian-polenta-supper-gatherings-from-the-kitchn-186499" style="line-height: normal;">this menu</a><span style="line-height: normal;">. You might make the polenta an hour in advance, so you have time to re-make it if it burns (which I often seem to do). Then keep it warm in a slow-cooker or something.<br />
<br />
<b>Curry menu</b><br />
</span><br />
<ul><li><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-cook-rice-on-the-stove-44333">Jasmine rice</a></span></span></li>
<span style="line-height: normal;"> <span style="line-height: normal;">
<li><a href="https://thewholesky.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/dinner-party-menu/#curry">Chicken coconut curry</a></li>
<li>Chickpea coconut curry</li>
<li>Indian spiced spinach (<a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/saag-paneer-spinach-with-indian-cheese-recipe/index.html">palak paneer</a> without the paneer. I took some out before adding the dairy so there was a vegan version.)</li>
<li>Store-bought naan</li>
<li>Plain yogurt</li>
<li><a href="http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Classic-Mango-Lassi">Lassi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://resonant.dreamwidth.org/95885.html">Key lime pie</a></li>
<li><a href="https://thewholesky.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/dinner-party-menu/#gingerbread">Gingerbread</a></li>
</span></span></ul><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: normal;">Cost when I made it: $3.25/person.<br />
<br />
The nice thing is that you can make the curries in advance and heat them up before dinner. If you make the pies in advance or use a store-bought dessert, you could serve this on a weeknight – it might take 40 minutes to heat up the curries and make the rice.<br />
<br />
<b>Chili menu</b><br />
</span><br />
</span><br />
<ul><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: normal;">
<li><a href="http://www.chowhound.com/food-news/134054/6-hearty-vegetarian-chili-recipes/">Vegetarian chili</a></li>
<li>Toppings (shredded cheese, sour cream, salsa, diced avocado)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.browneyedbaker.com/cornbread/">Cornbread</a></li>
<li>Salad</li>
<li>Orange segments dipped in chocolate</li>
Not one I've made yet, but one I enjoyed at someone else's party recently.</span></span></ul><span style="line-height: normal;"> <br />
<b>Mexican menu</b><br />
<ul><li>Nachos</li>
<li><a href="http://minimalistbaker.com/loaded-veggie-nacho-soup/">Tortilla soup</a></li>
<li>Soup toppings (tortilla strips, shredded cheese, sour cream, diced avocado)</li>
<li><a href="https://snapguide.com/guides/make-cheese-quesadillas-in-the-oven/">Oven quesadillas</a> (vegan and non-vegan) with caramelized onion and <a href="http://toriavey.com/how-to/2010/02/roasted-bell-peppers/">roasted red pepper</a></li>
<li><a href="http://heart-of-light.blogspot.com/2014/11/pitcher-palomas.html">Palomas</a> (grapefruit cocktail)</li>
<li>Ice cream with thawed frozen mangos</li>
</ul><div>The vegan nachos and quesadillas are done with refried beans, salsa, and vegan "cheese" shreds (Daiya brand is the best we've found).</div><div><br />
</div><div>Ice cream and thawed fruit works well because it takes no prep other than thawing a bowl of the fruit, and vegans can eat the fruit even if you can't find vegan ice cream. Berries become a mess when thawed, but ones like cherries and mango stay pretty intact.<br />
<br />
<b>Middle Eastern menu</b><br />
<br />
<ul><li>Appetizer: pear slices and pistachios</li>
<li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/146283514/Cook-s-Illustrated-Chickpea-Fritters-Falafel-Recipe#scribd">Falafel</a></li>
<li>Pita bread (store-bought)</li>
<li><a href="http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2010/01/tahini-sauce/">Tahini sauce</a> and/or <a href="http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/tzatziki-sauce/">cucumber-yogurt sauce</a></li>
<li><a href="https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=437549">Tabbouleh</a></li>
<li><a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/04/shakshuka/">Shakshuka</a> (eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.averiecooks.com/2015/04/the-best-and-the-easiest-molten-chocolate-lava-cakes.html">Chocolate lava cakes</a></li>
<li>Orange segments dipped in chocolate</li>
</ul><br />
If you're serving pears, buy them enough in advance that they have time to get ripe.<br />
<br />
Everything is vegan except the shakshuka and lava cakes. You can do tabbouleh with quinoa if you need it to be gluten-free.<br />
<br />
I do the lava cakes in muffin tins, which is way easier than ramekins. You can make them in advance (basically 10 minutes of melting and stirring), refrigerate them, and bake them during the party (they only bake for 12 minutes).</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-91723505743561322122015-09-03T17:15:00.000-04:002015-09-03T17:15:35.856-04:00Luck of the drawSeeing stories about the horrifying conditions Syrian refugees face, I’m thinking once again about how lucky I am to have been born in this country.<br />
<br />
As a social worker, some of the clients I work with are immigration detainees waiting to find out if they will be deported. <br />
<br />
The descriptions they give of their journeys to this country are harrowing. “I spent three days walking through the mountains. There were snakes.” “In the desert it was freezing at night and hot in the day. We got surprised by immigration officials at night and ran off without our water. My neighbor died.” “You pass corpses in the desert.”<br />
<br />
What exactly would make a person take those kind of risks? Sometimes it’s a very specific fear: “After my brother got shot, my parents scraped together the money for the trip and told me to come here.” But often it’s simply to avoid grinding poverty. One man explained the life he left as a corn farmer in Central America: “I think I could make about $8 a day. What kind of life can you have? I can’t get married on that, I can’t raise kids.” <br />
<br />
Some of them speak of the difference they were able to make to their families: “My mother depends on money I send her for insulin. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to afford it if I have to go back.” “I’ve been keeping my children in school. School there isn’t free like here: you have to buy uniforms and books.” “When I visited my cousins, I left my clothes with them because they didn’t have decent clothes. That’s how poor they are.”<br />
<br />
In short, they’re normal people who want normal things and have gone to extraordinary lengths to get them.<br />
<br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-c833cabd-950c-7f25-96c0-305ce51901f2"><img height="600px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/173U7_cvQTBFzti60EgVM5lBgs95MsLZ5IxiXvOE9MDT7RTAVUnZNBOCggpzIdoGufI5SEnCVNucUNtMd2o3c1Sfzd1P29JM2ERxA-nXXtCI_3Rrxlm9nejq0gMBPKJxIahXwd60Nw" /></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Source: Branko Milanovic, PovcalNet (World Bank)</i></div>
<br />
An American at the poverty line ($11,770 a year) is richer than 85% of the world, even after accounting for different costs of living. You can play around with the “<a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i">How Rich Am I?</a>” calculator.<br />
<br />
This is why the idea of prioritizing one’s own neighborhood or nation over others has never made sense to me. No one would choose to be born in the murder capital of the world, or a country undergoing civil war, or a community where people can’t afford to send their children to school. I didn’t do anything to earn my American passport except be born. I didn’t earn the right to be white, or healthy, or from an upper-middle-class family.<br />
<br />
And that’s why I want to use my good fortune to make a difference for people who didn’t get so lucky.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-21196765938366424472015-09-03T11:16:00.000-04:002015-09-03T11:16:35.009-04:00Two new rolesI'm excited to be starting some new things:<br />
<ul>
<li>In June I joined the board of <a href="http://www.givewell.org/">GiveWell</a>.</li>
<li>I'm joining the Center for Effective Altruism's Outreach team. I've wanted to work for them for years, and I'm so glad it became possible without moving to another country! I'll still be doing some social work part-time.</li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-4955201487972709342015-08-29T14:42:00.000-04:002015-11-16T10:54:59.563-05:00EA organizations doing policy workA lot of people, myself included, have felt conflicted about the choice between doing direct work (like health interventions) and trying to change systems. Everyone agrees that well-done policy work can have big impacts, but there's less agreement about how to tell if your work is actually good at changing policy.<br />
<br />
At the EA Global conference in California, I was excited to hear more about three EA organizations doing policy work, two of which I hadn't heard of before. <a href="https://vimeo.com/136387364">Video of all the talks</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Open Philanthropy Project</b><br />
<br />
The Open Philanthropy Project, formerly known as GiveWell Labs, is a joint project of <a href="http://www.goodventures.org/">Good Ventures</a> and <a href="http://www.givewell.org/">GiveWell</a>. While GiveWell focuses on recommending giving opportunities with very demonstrated impact, the Open Philanthropy Project explores giving opportunities that have higher risks but higher potential rewards, or that may take a long time to have results.<br />
<br />
One of the project's focuses is <a href="http://blog.givewell.org/2015/03/10/open-philanthropy-project-update-u-s-policy/">US policy</a>. Some areas they're looking into include:<br />
<ul>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/criminal-justice-reform">Criminal justice reform</a></span></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/macroeconomic-policy/CPDgrant2">Macroeconomic policy</a></span></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/treatment-animals-industrial-agriculture">Factory farming</a></span> </li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/labor-mobility"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">Labor mobility</span></a></li>
</ul>
You can see Howie Lempel's EA Global <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qJ14_9UJes">talk</a>.<br />
<br />
At this point they're not asking for more funding and do not expect to recommend specific giving opportunities for individual donors.<br />
<div>
<br />
<b>Effective Altruism Policy Analytics</b><br />
<br />
<nbsp> <a href="https://eapolicy.wordpress.com/">Effective Altruism Policy Analytics</a> is a really interesting shoestring operation run by students at the University of Maryland and economist Richard Bruns. Its goal is "to bring non-partisan, cause-neutral improvements to regulatory action in the United States."<br />
<br />
This summer, they've been working on policy comments. The US Government has a comment period on new <a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#!home">regulations</a> during which anyone can submit comments and suggestions for change to proposed regulations. The government agency in question must respond to each comment, and may change its regulation if it hears suggestions it likes. EA Policy Analytics has been looking for regulations with room for improvement, but which are cheap to implement and aren't controversial, and submitting comments on them. Some of the topics they've addressed include:<br />
</nbsp><br />
<ul>
<li>improving compliance with motorcycle helmet laws</li>
<li>reducing paperwork burden on immigration applicants</li>
<li>correcting a faulty formula used in funding home weatherization</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
This is definitely in the "experimental" category, but I like it. It's in everyone's interest to have a bunch of slightly better policies, but it's not enough in anyone's interest to do this kind of work for selfish reasons. In other words, it's a perfect project for altruists.<br />
<br />
Because they just started, they've only heard back about <a href="https://eapolicy.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/protection-of-stratospheric-ozone-change-of-listing-status-for-certain-substitutes-under-the-significant-new-alternatives-policy-program-response/">one</a> of their suggested changes (their suggestion was not taken). They're moving toward choosing regulations more carefully and putting more time into each comment, but they expect that the benefit of even one successful regulation improvement would be worth a lot of failed attempts. Here's an <a href="http://effective-altruism.com/ea/jv/introducing_effective_altruism_policy_analytics/42x">example</a> of a case where a regulation was changed based on comments.<br />
<br />
You can see Matt Gentzel's EA Global <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLw2jNvbdw">talk</a>.<br />
<br />
They're not asking for donations at this point.<br />
<br />
<b>Center for Global Development</b><br />
<br />
<nbsp> The Center for Global Development (CGD) is a "think and do" tank founded in 2001 with the goal of reducing global poverty and inequality via policy change in the US and other rich countries. They work on a broad range of topics including <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/topics/aid_effectiveness">aid effectiveness</a>, <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/topics/climate_change">climate change</a>, <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/topics/education">education</a>, <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/topics/globalization">globalization</a>, <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/topics/global_health">health</a>, <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/topics/migration">migration</a>, and <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/topics/trade">trade</a>.<br />
<br />
Some examples of projects:<br />
</nbsp><br />
<ul>
<li>"Cash on Delivery Aid": proposed a program, currently being piloted by the UK Department for International Development, in which the Ethiopian government is paid a set amount for each student beyond a baseline that completes primary school and takes a grade-10 test. Rather than focusing on "was the money disbursed?" or "how many schools/textbooks/etc. did we buy?" as many aid programs do, this puts the emphasis on results. It respects local autonomy, because the Ethiopian government is free to change its educational system in whatever way it finds best. Results seem to be <a href="http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/where-have-we-got-to-on-results-based-aid-cash-on-delivery-etc/">mixed</a>.</li>
<li>Popularized <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_market_commitments" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">advance market commitments</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;"> for developing vaccines, in which donors make a contract to pay for a successful vaccine if it is developed, providing pharmaceutical companies with financial incentive to develop vaccines. The major </span><a href="http://www.gavi.org/funding/pneumococcal-amc/" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">success</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;"> here seems to have been the 2010 pneumonococcal vaccine.</span><br />
</li>
<li>After Haiti's 2010 earthquake, one of many voices advocating for increased number of Haitian guestworkers to be admitted to the US. Remittances (money sent home) make up <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS">20%</a> of Haiti's GDP.</li>
</ul>
<br />
It's a lot harder for me to tell what's going on here, since it's a much more established organization with a lot more projects than the above two. Because they've tried more things, they have some failures as well as successes on their record. <br />
<br />
As with much policy work, it's hard to tell how much success to credit to any one organization. E.g. if they're one of several actors calling for a particular change that is made, would it have happened anyway without them? <br />
<br />
You can see Rajesh Mirchandani's EA Global <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QAZVajFn8M">talk</a> (though it is more about policy change in general than the organization in particular).<br />
<br />
Unlike the other two organizations described, CDG is actively taking <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/contribute">donations</a>. GiveWell has <a href="http://blog.givewell.org/2013/07/03/grant-to-center-for-global-development-cgd/">recommended</a> a grant to them in the past. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-6129605585447341272015-08-02T12:18:00.002-04:002015-09-03T17:21:00.189-04:00Recommend readingGreetings from the Effective Altruism Global Conference in California! I just got a copy of Will MacAskill's new book about effective altruism, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-Difference/dp/1592409105">Doing Good Better</a>.<br />
<br />
I haven't finished it yet, but I'm finding it enjoyable, with sound advice on career choice, what kinds of causes can do most with your donation, and other steps you can take. You should get a copy! Even if you're already persuaded of everything Will has to say, the examples and the ways he lays out arguments may be helpful in thinking about how to present these ideas to others.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-Difference/dp/1592409105" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkLo13H6HyTAPuxgfX2OztwOGxSsYrAhKChyphenhypheni43ze0KUlEwXYoyfS1gOqYmePh7TubLUPoOYFJLrSRxddC8ixZjyAGZvypfi92Z8dh0BdRQph4U9bhUay9TapoN8eaBVZ25LMY1B3NA-g/s400/41%252BnfGp2AgL._SY400_.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
More thoughts about the conference coming soon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-36253472777345969312015-05-18T12:59:00.000-04:002015-09-03T17:20:17.292-04:00Bread and rosesBoth advocates and critics of effective altruism like to contrast arts charities with public health charities. Peter Singer <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/peter-singer-asks-why-collectors-pay-millions-of-dollars-for-artwork-rather-than-using-the-money-to-save-lives#K8Cod14VCP31eoYg.99">writes</a> on art auctions:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In a more ethical world, to spend tens of millions of dollars on works of art would be status-lowering, not status-enhancing. Such behavior would lead people to ask: “In a world in which more than six million children die each year because they lack safe drinking water or mosquito nets, or because they have not been immunized against measles, couldn’t you find something better to do with your money?”</blockquote>
This sometimes strikes art-lovers as harsh. After all, they point out, life is about more than just surviving (although this always seems backwards to me, because surviving is obviously a prerequisite for any sort of higher enjoyment, and the unspoken implication is that some people should be left to struggle so others can enjoy the ballet).<br />
<br />
But I think one of our problems is that when we think of "the arts," we think of expensive ones—symphony orchestras playing in concert halls, museums with paintings that cost millions of dollars.<br />
<br />
Around the world and throughout history, art has been something more homegrown—people making music in their own families and communities, decorating their belongings and dwellings, composing stories and poetry. There have been many human societies without arts foundations, but none without dance, music, and storytelling.<br />
<br />
I was totally charmed to hear some evidence of how promoting human survival also promotes human flourishing: the GiveDirectly theme song. <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/">GiveDirectly</a> is a highly rated charity providing cash transfers to poor households in Kenya.<br />
<br />
They write: "One of our recipients used part of his transfer to buy instruments and start a band, and wrote this song. We think they sound pretty happy with our service."<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 24.375px;"><br />
</span> <iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/175832604&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
A partial <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/give-directly-song.html">translation</a> of the song:<br />
<br />
<i>We thank GiveDirectly, the work you are doing in Kenya, Africa is great</i><br />
<i>GiveDirectly has helped those who were in thatched houses </i><br />
<i>And now almost everyone is having <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/blog-post.html?id=2845341784910255488">iron roof house</a></i><br />
<i>They have helped everyone who used to sleep in thatched houses, </i><br />
<i>Now all you see are shining iron roofs.</i><br />
<br />
<div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.625;">
Another <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/blog-post.html?id=6715014328321530668">piece</a> from a GiveDirectly worker on the role of celebration in the lives of the very poor:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I recently visited Peter, nicknamed Ous Papa, a 50-year-old man and beneficiary of GiveDirectly. Ous Papa had an accident a long time ago and lost one of his legs; as a result, his wife left him. He therefore takes care of his 80-year-old widowed mother alone. They are in absolute poverty -- he has a small grass-thatched house, with mud walls and floor. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He has old crutches that he uses to help him walk and do chores. They are quite old, and therefore difficult to work with. In spite of that, he still wakes up early to work on the farm. When we met, I asked him what he was planning to do with the transfer he was going to receive from GiveDirectly. These were his words: “I would buy a leg.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I did not understand why he would buy a leg, when he could get a wheelchair that would help him move quickly and easily. He explained that he loves dancing and that he can’t dance in a wheelchair. Furthermore, once he got an artificial leg, he would be able to work, just like anybody else. He said that he would put the rest of the money into his farm, and later get a wife to keep him company and help him take care of his old mother. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I found it really inspiring that a 50-year-old can be in absolute poverty and still dream of dancing. </blockquote>
To me, the message is that the basics are not just about the basics. Even the very poor want enjoyment and creativity in their lives—<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses">bread and roses</a>, as James Oppenheim put it in his 1911 poem about striking millworkers.<br />
<br />
And once people have the basics—a decent roof, a leg to dance on—just like anyone, they want to cut loose and celebrate.<br />
<br />
<i>Thanks to Catriona for pointing out the song and the connection to the arts debate!</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-65097062556039737632015-04-27T11:51:00.002-04:002015-04-27T11:51:22.383-04:00The Most Good You Can DoI was excited to see Peter Singer's new book, <a href="http://amzn.com/0300180276">The Most Good You Can Do</a>.<br />
<br />
He's letting the internet decide to donate $10,000 of the royalties. Play the <a href="http://www.mostgoodyoucando.com/the-movement/">Giving Game</a> to vote! Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-73607705065261466292015-04-12T11:17:00.002-04:002015-04-14T11:01:41.470-04:00Charity begins at home?Sometimes people ask Jeff and me if we plan to raise our daughter in some special way as an effective altruist. The answer is “not really.” Some have asked if we consider her a sort of recruit, hoping that her future donations will outweigh the cost of raising her. The answer is “definitely not.” <br />
<br />
Of course, we hope that Lily will become a kind and generous person. (Currently she’s at the stage of taking other babies’ books from them at the library, but we trust that will change.) But we wouldn't want to count on her donating a certain amount, or curing malaria, or anything else. It doesn't seem very realistic, and pushing her too hard to be like us might backfire and cause her to reject the whole idea.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PcyiT0lOevsi-lkyCGBultA0MwQVHXBwgBBpmtjvZNeasu73mCu1Swyd-_oR7NfzgcDP0yAO85Z5miaiPzwth_CoS5kNV6MpVtF8sw7dCIXVw67mfLKa0cYIbAFb54xEJYTDpui84Co/s1600/lily+one+year.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PcyiT0lOevsi-lkyCGBultA0MwQVHXBwgBBpmtjvZNeasu73mCu1Swyd-_oR7NfzgcDP0yAO85Z5miaiPzwth_CoS5kNV6MpVtF8sw7dCIXVw67mfLKa0cYIbAFb54xEJYTDpui84Co/s1600/lily+one+year.jpg" height="291" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 22.079999923706055px; text-align: left;">Celebrating one year of being neither effective nor altruistic</span></td></tr>
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<br />
I've seen some people react with dismay that anyone would give away a large portion of their income while also choosing to become a parent. They don't like the idea of "putting other people before your child." <br />
<br />
If Lily really needed anything, we'd do our best to be sure she had it. Even after giving away half our income, we're left with more than the average American family. (And <i>far</i> more than the <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i?">average world family</a>.) As one friend says, "It's obviously possible to live on this amount of money, because almost everyone does it." So we're at least as able to provide for Lily as most other families you might meet.<br />
<br />
And part of raising a child is teaching them that their wants don't always come first. You can't always have the biggest slice of cake, or your friend's toy, or the first turn on the swing when other children are waiting. Learning to share and to prioritize others' needs as well as your own is an important part of learning to live in human society.<br />
<br />
I hope that giving will be a normal part of family life as Lily grows up. My mother grew up in a household where her parents tithed 10% of their income, and none of them considered that remarkable. My grandmother taught her children to allocate their 20-cent allowance with "a dime to spend, a nickel to save, and a nickel to give away." There are some <a href="http://www.moonjar.com/">attractive</a> <a href="http://www.maya-tony.com/item/Mudpuppy_Save_Spend_and_Share_Bank/931">children's</a> <a href="http://www.msgen.com/assembled/money_savvy_pig.html#.VSmpChz3-iw">banks</a> out there with different compartments for saving, spending, investing, and giving. I've also seen <a href="http://goodgravydesigns.blogspot.com/2011/04/save-give-and-spend-jars.html">homemade ones</a> if you're galled by the idea of paying for a piggy bank.<br />
<br />
We hope to teach Lily to be kind in her personal life, and also to think of herself as part of a larger world in which she can help many people (even if she doesn't know them personally).<br />
<br />
I like the idea of charity <i>beginning</i> at home. I wouldn’t want it to <i>end</i> there!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-11239904518244857812015-04-07T11:50:00.000-04:002015-04-07T11:50:06.476-04:00How much to push the envelope?This sprang out of the last post on <a href="http://www.givinggladly.com/2015/03/how-to-talk-about-giving.html">how to talk to people about giving</a>.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you're trying to persuade people, it's unclear how far to push things. I hope there are studies out there on the optimal approach, but I haven't seen them.<br />
<div>
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<div>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woolman">John Woolman</a> was an 18th-century American Quaker who was ardent about the abolition of slavery before abolitionism was really a thing. His friends found him kind of embarrassing because he would do things like refusing to use silverware at his friends' houses because silver was mined by slaves, or paying his friends' slaves for their work when they served him dinner. But he was successful in persuading some of his friends to free their slaves, and in retrospect his actions look heroic because he brought abolitionism onto the map.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I once assumed that Woolman was the kind of person who found it easy to do socially provocative things <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">—</span> I think we've all met That Guy at some point. But when I read his account of his life, he actually describes finding it really difficult and embarrassing to break social convention. He did it despite his discomfort, because he believed it was really important. That makes me respect him a lot more.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I often find myself getting annoyed with vegan activists for breaking social convention. Then I wonder if I'm dining with modern day Woolmans.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.">Martin Luther King, Jr</a>. and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X">Malcolm X</a> embody two different strategies about how much to push the envelope. King's civil rights movement was extremely careful to stay within conventional morality and to represent themselves as upstanding, respectable citizens. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin">Bayard Rustin</a>, who organized the March on Washington, was sidelined due to embarrassment about his being gay. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin">Claudette Colvin</a> was arrested nine months before Rosa Parks for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, but was not highlighted by the movement because she was unmarried and pregnant. Those decisions sound pretty awful now, but I think they were probably the right thing for that particular movement to do at the time, given that white Americans were not even okay with black ministers in suits eating at lunch counters.)<br />
<br />
Malcolm X was not worried about offending white sensibilities, calling King a "chump" and demanding social change rather than going the more incremental route. And yet he, too, was very careful about some aspects of presentation <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">—</span> I challenge you to find a picture of him not wearing a tie. There's one picture of him wearing a dashiki, but he's actually wearing a tie underneath.<br />
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<i><span style="text-align: start;">Related: Peter Hurford on </span><a href="http://effective-altruism.com/ea/bg/you_have_a_set_amount_of_weirdness_points_spend/" style="text-align: start;">using weirdness wisely</a><span style="text-align: start;">.</span></i></div>
<br />
It might be good for a movement to have some of both strategies. Some people/organizations play it safer and gain respectability. Others push the envelope. This is probably an argument for having multiple branches/organizations within a movement, so that some can try more radical strategies while other go for more mainstream appeal.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-14555960408658638832015-03-13T12:19:00.000-04:002015-04-07T11:31:22.316-04:00How to talk about givingRecently someone asked me about much to talk about effective giving. Some thoughts:<br />
<ul>
<li>Blogging (or other forms of writing) are nice because reading is optional. If I write a blog post and link to it on Facebook, my Facebook friends can either choose to go read it or not. If they're not interested in the topic, it's not awkward in the same way that it could be in conversation. Because I'm not afraid of seeming pushy, I end up saying more in writing than I would in person, with the result that people who are interested can easily find what I have to say on the topic.</li>
<li>There's value to just casually mentioning that giving is something you do and that's important to you. I think of it kind of like vegetarianism - if you didn't know any vegetarians, it would probably seem like a weird and difficult lifestyle. But once you are in an environment where you know several vegetarians (for many of us, this happens in college), it starts seeming much more feasible and normal. Likewise, if you've never met anyone who gives 10% of their income, that might seem like a freakishly large amount, but once you know a couple of people who do it, you might start to consider it yourself.</li>
<li>For people with a tight budget, I think donating even a token amount every year is valuable because it lets you talk about your decision. You can say to a friend, "I try to donate some every December, and I was trying to figure out where to give this year. I was reading about [xyz charity] and found out [interesting fact], so I think I'll go with them because..." etc. </li>
<li>I know a few people whose strategy is to talk about their favorite causes as much as possible and try very hard to persuade people. It's not necessarily a bad strategy <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">—</span> the Mormons have done very well for themselves by having a lot of earnest conversations with a lot of people <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">—</span> but I also think it's okay to take a more relaxed approach. </li>
<li>If you're excited and ardent about this, it's fine to come across as excited and ardent, but please be careful of being obnoxious or looking like a crackpot.</li>
<li>Please don't exaggerate your data. I've seen people using very low estimates for the cost to save a life, usually ones that are years out of date. GiveWell used to be a bit more forward with estimates like "It costs $X to save a life with mosquito nets," but after they found serious mistakes in even the best data out there, they're less more cautious about that kind of statement. You should be cautious, too. If you're slinging around numbers like $800 from an essay written years ago, and the current best <a href="http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/AMF#Costperlifesaved">estimate</a> is more like $3,500, you're not helping the situation.</li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-40665039676968154282015-01-03T21:47:00.000-05:002015-01-03T21:47:28.049-05:00Thomas Cannon<br />
I grew up hearing about Thomas Cannon, the "poor man's philanthropist" of my home town. He was a postal clerk known for leaving $1000 checks to strangers. Recently I received a book about him (thank you, David!) and have been enjoying reading about his life.<br />
<br />
After his death in 2005, the Washington Post wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
He gave away more than $150,000 over the past 33 years, mostly in thousand-dollar checks, to people he read about in the Richmond Times-Dispatch who were experiencing hard times or who had been unusually kind or courageous.<br />
<br />
Mr. Cannon supported his wife and himself, their two sons and his charitable efforts on a salary that never topped $20,000 a year. As one of his sons recalled, "There was nothing special about our home life. He went to work every day, helped us with our football and baseball, made sure we were taken care of."<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><br />
<br />
When he retired from the postal service in 1983, he and his wife lived in virtual poverty on his pension. "We lived simply, so we could give money away," he told the Times-Dispatch this year. "People say, 'How can you afford it?' Well, how can people afford new cars and boats? Instead of those, we deliberately kept our standard of living down below our means. I get money from the same place people get money for those other things."</blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-63470517223030631982014-12-09T08:20:00.004-05:002014-12-09T09:44:15.270-05:002014 charity recommendationsGiveWell's charity <a href="http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities">recommendations</a> for 2014 are out! They are recommending:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.againstmalaria.com/Donation.aspx">Against Malaria Foundation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.evidenceaction.org/give">Deworm the World </a>(through Evidence Action)</li>
<li><a href="http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/schisto/donate">Schistosomiasis Control Initiative</a></li>
<li><a href="https://givedirectly.org/">Give Directly</a></li>
</ul>
Giving What We Can recommends a similar <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/top-charities">list</a>, with the substitution of <a href="http://projecthealthychildren.org/">Project Healthy Children</a> rather than Give Directly.<br />
<br />
I think GiveWell's process is the most rigorous in the field of poverty (process <a href="http://www.givewell.org/international/process">described here</a>). Giving What We Can also explains their <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/about-us/how-we-assess-charities">process</a>, so you can see if their value system might be closer to yours. If you believe animal welfare work is most important, <a href="http://www.animalcharityevaluators.org/recommendations/">Animal Charity Evaluators</a> are the only people I know making recommendations in that field.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-22320997890583243352014-11-16T20:39:00.003-05:002014-11-24T10:10:19.069-05:00Hosting an effective altruism discussion(Edit: Xio points out that there's a more complete <a href="http://effective-altruism.com/ea/a6/outreaching_effective_altruism_locally_resources/">post</a> about these resources on the EA forum.)<br />
<br />
Recently a friend and I were talking about hosting effective altruism meetups in our respective cities. If you're considering hosting a gathering for people to discuss effective altruism, how do you get started?<br />
<br />
First, find out who's already in your area. Here's a list of <a href="http://effective-altruism.com/meetups/">upcoming events</a>, Giving What We Can <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/chapters">chapters</a>, and The Life You Can Save <a href="http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/Get-Involved/Groups">groups</a>. There's also a <a href="http://effectivealtruismhub.com/map">map</a> of individual EAs<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">—</span>maybe you'll find someone near you.<br />
<br />
If you'd like to host a gathering, this document has some ideas from different people (including me). If you've ever hosted an EA meetup, please add your thoughts to this document.<br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cMyRqIwnPB_dBCEOkcueF2aQ67q9VbOPpY-JJzsLq3A/edit">How to host an effective altruism meetup</a><br />
<br />
If you want to start a group at a university, Ben's writeups are especially well-done:<br />
<a href="http://www.benkuhn.net/outreach">Thoughts on outreach</a><br />
<a href="http://www.benkuhn.net/studentgroup">Student group notes</a><br />
<br />
Jeff talks about how to start a discussion at work:<br />
<a href="http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/av/effective_altruism_at_your_work/">Effective altruism at your work</a><br />
<br />
This is probably an especially good time of year to host a gathering, since so many people donate in December. <a href="http://www.givewell.org/">GiveWell</a> expects to publish their 2014 charity recommendations by December 1, so consider organizing an informal gathering a little after that. Maybe just sending out an email and staking out a table in your workplace's lunch room for those who want to discuss charity selection.<br />
<br />
I've also found that a lot of good conversations happen one-on-one when someone says, "I'm passing through Boston! Want to meet up for coffee?" Take a look at the <a href="http://effectivealtruismhub.com/map">map</a> of EAs, add yourself to it, and consider having a chat with people near you or near where you travel.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-36753320912027207162014-10-08T19:54:00.000-04:002014-10-11T13:18:51.064-04:00Aim high, even if you fall shortLet’s say I believe it would be good for my health to go running every day. But I quickly realize that I don’t want to run every day, and that realistically I’ll only run a few times a month. It’s embarrassing to think of myself as being inconsistent, so perhaps I decide that running isn't actually good for my health after all. In short, I come up with new beliefs to suit the action I was already planning to take.<br />
<br />
It's obviously silly to come up with new "facts" for the sake of convenience. Is it any better to come up with new moral beliefs for the same reason? <br />
<br />
Sometimes I hear people say, "It seems reasonable to believe that people on the other side of the world matter as much as anyone else. But if I believed that, I should be trying a lot harder to help them, and that would require drastic changes to my life. So that's why I don't believe we have the same responsibility to help everyone." This way their actions are consistent with their beliefs—or at least, their beliefs are consistent with their actions.<br />
<br />
Let’s take the question, “Is it wrong for me to eat meat?” Upon hearing the question, I immediately translate it as, “Do I want to stop eating meat?” The answer to that is, “No, I want to keep eating it.” So it’s tempting to answer the first question as, “No, animals don’t really suffer, so it’s fine for me to eat meat.” Very tidy.<br />
<br />
Inconsistency, in addition to feeling icky, opens you up to criticism. People love to catch vegetarians eating things they’re “not supposed to,” while catching an omnivore eating a turkey sandwich gives no such pleasure. People love to criticize Peter Singer because he wrote an <a href="http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Singeressayspring1972.pdf">essay</a> saying we should give money to poor people rather than buying new clothes and cars for ourselves, and yet he personally doesn’t wear rags or live in a hovel. (People rarely talk about the fact that he would find it harder to work as a professor and would persuade fewer people if he wore rags.)<br />
<br />
And yet people might accomplish more good if they were willing to set high goals and fail sometimes. Give yourself permission to go partway. I’ve often heard people say, “I couldn’t be vegetarian because I’d miss [particular food] too much.” I felt that way about ice cream. So I spent a summer eating vegan - except for ice cream. It was morally inconsistent, and it felt much less morally pure to say, "I'm eating vegan <span style="font-size: x-small;">...um, except for ice cream</span>," but it resulted in me eating far fewer animal products than I usually did.<br />
<br />
And maybe if I'm honest about what I believe is right, someone else with more willpower or different life circumstances will be persuaded and go farther than I will. Certainly Peter Singer has persuaded many people that giving money is a good thing to do, even if he hasn't given away every last penny of his own.<br />
<br />
In the end, it’s about what your goals are. Is your goal to be able to take pride in how consistent you are? To be irreproachable because your standards for yourself are low enough that you can easily meet them? Or is it more important to be honest about your moral beliefs and actually make some progress toward them, even if you don’t get everything done as well as you would like to?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-79367962766839256462014-07-31T21:45:00.002-04:002014-08-05T10:15:16.259-04:00Donating as a studentToday I was talking with some undergraduates, and the topic of how to manage donations while in school came up. When you're taking on student loans, it can seem like a bad time to be giving money away.<br />
<br />
Reasons to donate now, even in small amounts:<br />
<ul>
<li>It keeps you in the habit of giving. There will always be a reason to delay — student loans, a mortgage, a child. If you're ever going to donate, you might as well start now.</li>
<li>It keeps you in the loop. If you need to decide where to donate each year, you end up looking at the latest charity recommendations. And you're thinking about your values and how you want to go about picking a place (or places) to give.</li>
<li>It lets you talk to others about your choices. Better to be able to mention “this great charity that I support” than “this great charity that I’m going to support . . . eventually.”</li>
</ul>
Some more thoughts on the student years:<br />
<ul>
<li>Invest in yourself. It's worth it to spend extra money or time if you will gain useful skills, experiences, and connections. (Not that this means spending years backpacking in Europe. I always think of Bill Cosby's sketch on <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Cosby_Show#How_Ugly_is_He.3F_.5B1.09.5D">finding yourself</a>.)<br />
</li>
<li>Value your time, not just your money. Katja Grace writes a good post on <a href="http://www.effective-altruism.com/using-time-effectively-student/">Using Time Effectively as a Student</a>.</li>
<li>This is a time in life when people and experiences are probably much more important to you than material things. After school, keep your needs small rather than ramping up your spending.</li>
<li>Keep good relationships with your family. It’s not worth fighting with your parents about small expenses in order to donate a little more.</li>
<li>You probably have some money you spend on clothes, entertainment, etc. Consider donating a portion of that. For example, the <a href="http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/join">Giving What We Can pledge</a> asks students and other people without their own income to donate 1% of their spending money.</li>
<li>Tweak your budget once a month, or once a semester, or once a year. Experiment to find what works for you.</li>
<li>This is a great time to join or start a group on effective altruism. Organizing gets a lot harder after you don't have friends and classmates all living on campus together. See if there's a chapter of <a href="http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/chapters">Giving What We Can</a> or <a href="http://80000hours.org/student-groups">80,000 Hours</a> near you. Or consider <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cMyRqIwnPB_dBCEOkcueF2aQ67q9VbOPpY-JJzsLq3A/edit">organizing something</a> of your own, even if it's just talking with people over coffee.</li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644358391468331871.post-41045086762571478222014-07-16T19:47:00.000-04:002014-07-31T21:46:50.815-04:00When intuition isn't good enough<div class="p1">
Recently I was at a talk given by Rachel Glennerster of the <a href="http://www.povertyactionlab.org/">Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty</a></div>
<div class="p1">
<a href="http://www.povertyactionlab.org/">Action Lab</a> (JPAL). In speaking about cost-effectiveness, she gave examples from</div>
<div class="p1">
several different education interventions in Africa:</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
1) merit scholarships<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>for girls</div>
<div class="p1">
2) free primary school uniforms</div>
<div class="p1">
3) providing information to parents on how schooling increases income</div>
<div class="p1">
4) deworming through primary schools</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
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All the interventions sounded pretty good to me. I could see how all of them might increase the number of years children spend in school.</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
But JPAL compared randomized controlled trials of each intervention, and when they looked at the additional years of education you get for the cost, these are the results:</div>
<div class="p1">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKCpy49QRCwXhWAmaJTjDGrlvXDpwnWPAkSn6_ZUZqWdC9g1jed2eWCRm-_CRE7ekg49Ir7lKGtjEgqSfmlVDAyd_DrCwbueCbSCajIKEVUc0CwlFOze4K3-ME2Gs7M-L5lgpITbAkie4/s1600/education+interventions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKCpy49QRCwXhWAmaJTjDGrlvXDpwnWPAkSn6_ZUZqWdC9g1jed2eWCRm-_CRE7ekg49Ir7lKGtjEgqSfmlVDAyd_DrCwbueCbSCajIKEVUc0CwlFOze4K3-ME2Gs7M-L5lgpITbAkie4/s1600/education+interventions.jpg" height="318" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">Source: </span><a href="http://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-lessons/education/student-participation" style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;">JPAL</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This isn't perfect information: the studies are from different countries, and as with any studies, there's some uncertainty. But it's a lot better than relying on guesswork.</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
In retrospect, it makes sense that parents would prioritize schooling if they know more about education's economic benefits to their children. But I can make up just-so stories for why any of these would be the most effective. You could have presented me with any of those interventions, told me it was<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>a great<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>method to get children more schooling,<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>and I would have found it believable.<br />
<br />
(In fact, the <a href="http://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/documents/Nguyen%202008.pdf">Madagascar study</a> tested whether it works better to give parents statistics about children's expected earnings or to have "role models" speak to parents about how education benefited them. The role model intervention is more common, based on the theory that impoverished parents with poor literacy aren't able to understand statistics. But the study indicated that they are able to understand the information given, and that it actually works better than having role models speak to them.)<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
These studies go beyond asking "Does it work?" That's a good starting place <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">—</span> after all, some interventions <a href="http://80000hours.org/blog/66-social-interventions-gone-wrong">don't work at all</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">—</span> but it's not enough. Everyone from small donors to government policymakers needs to know about cost-effectiveness. Unless we have infinite money, we need to know where our money will go the farthest so we can start there. If we have $100 to give, there's a big difference between buying school uniforms (which we expect to result in less than one year of additional education) and providing information to parents (which we expect to result in over twenty years of education!)</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
This is<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>why research is<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>important. I'm glad there are people out there like JPAL getting more information so we're not just guessing. </div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<i>You can hear Rachel Glennerster's talk and others from the Good Done Right conference <a href="http://www.gooddoneright.com/#!programme/c1dj9">here</a><span id="goog_247779392"></span><span id="goog_247779393"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a>. Apologies for the occasional baby sounds in the background, which are my daughter.</i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0