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Many aspects of Effective Altruism have been helpful, but Earning to Give is not one of them. When Effective Altruism started gaining traction in the early 201

Many aspects of Effective Altruism have been helpful, but Earning to Give is not one of them. When Effective Altruism started gaining traction in the early 2010s, Earning to Give was a poster child of EA recommendations, hailed as a counterintuitive yet rational outcome of utilitarian analysis. It has long been considered mainstream in Effective Altruism and was advocated heavily by the organization 80,000 Hours, which provides career advice for people wanting to do good in the world. It's not a bad thing to earn money in ethical ways and then also donate money to good causes. Unfortunately, one of the specific examples that gets the most attention is to go into high-frequency trading (instead of another career) so you can earn money to donate. https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/trading-in-quantitative-hedge-funds/ https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/trading-in-quantitativ... Although 80,000 Hours no longer emphasizes Earning to Give, it has never taken public responsibility for the damage it has done by steering young people toward career decisions that prioritize Earning to Give and for broadly legitimizing Earning to Give in EA circles.

yboris 4y ago
I saw Earning to Give as a broader strategy. I was a math teacher with no way to help those who were the worst-off in the world. By taking a fraction of my income and giving it to cost-effective charities I was able to do that. So could basically anyone - regardless of how divorced their work was from philanthropy. Earning to Give as a specific strategy for college-age students isn't terrible either. Of course one can pervert it by going to maximize earnings for a tobacco company, but people aiming to do good would most-likely steer away from these types of things anyway. I think the reason 80,000 Hours moved away from the Earning to Give strategy was because of the numerous new (and better) opportunities they were able to find as they put in more research time and as the movement grew in its size.
wutbrodo 4y ago
I was expecting some allusion to _why_ you think ETG is damaging. For a consequentialist, the baseline logic is straightforward: what do you think the pitfalls are? Or is your issue with consequentialism itself? The latter would seem to reject the fundamental premise of EA, not just ETG
- zestyping 4y ago
  The issue is primarily with motivated reasoning, not consequentialism, though naive consequentialism (also rampant in EA) can also be dangerous. ETG encourages people to think of the positive side of what they're doing (donating money) without considering the negatives (harmful careers). Being rich, and focusing on getting rich as a goal, distorts your thinking.
  - tomp 4y ago
    The best paid careers are in HFT, which is far less harmful than e.g. ad optimisation (the business of most big tech)
    - zestyping 4y ago
      Interesting — could I hear your argument why?
      - tomp 4y ago
        The only people HFT “harms” are traders, i.e. voluntary participants in the “get rich” game who are likewise trying to win, but aren’t good enough. BigTech ads are instead non-consensually forced upon people and steal their attention (best case) or manipulate their thoughts/desires (worst case)
        Dracophoenix 4y ago
        > BigTech ads are instead non-consensually forced upon people and steal their attention (best case) or manipulate their thoughts/desires (worst case) Those who make the ads and those who view them are voluntarily exchanging their time and attention with each other. They're traders in the same way high-frequency traders are.
        tomp 4y ago
        maybe in theory, but in practice ads are everywhere and completely unavoidable in everyday life
a_puppy 4y ago
> Unfortunately, one of the specific examples that gets the most attention is to go into high-frequency trading (instead of another career) so you can earn money to donate. If this is the argument, then the criticism should focus on HFT, not on EA. Most HFT employees aren't earning to give, and donate little to none of their income to effective charities. If HFT is harmful, then those non-EA HFT employees deserve at least as much criticism as EA HFT employees. So if you're worried about HFT, you should start with criticism of HFT, and if someone tries to defend HFT by bringing up EA, _then_ you can debate whether the benefits of earning-to-give outweigh the damage done by HFT. But this article, and your comment, are doing the exact opposite -- you're _starting_ with criticism of the EA movement, and only mentioning HFT in passing! It comes across as looking for an excuse to criticize EA, rather than being genuinely concerned about harm caused by HFT.
- zestyping 4y ago
  EA advocates of earning to give are telling people to _switch_ to an HFT career _as an ethical choice_. The criticism here is of the claim that _earning to give_ is charitable, not a claim that HFT is charitable.

yboris 4y ago

I saw Earning to Give as a broader strategy. I was a math teacher with no way to help those who were the worst-off in the world. By taking a fraction of my income and giving it to cost-effective charities I was able to do that. So could basically anyone - regardless of how divorced their work was from philanthropy. Earning to Give as a specific strategy for college-age students isn't terrible either. Of course one can pervert it by going to maximize earnings for a tobacco company, but people aiming to do good would most-likely steer away from these types of things anyway. I think the reason 80,000 Hours moved away from the Earning to Give strategy was because of the numerous new (and better) opportunities they were able to find as they put in more research time and as the movement grew in its size.

wutbrodo 4y ago

I was expecting some allusion to _why_ you think ETG is damaging. For a consequentialist, the baseline logic is straightforward: what do you think the pitfalls are? Or is your issue with consequentialism itself? The latter would seem to reject the fundamental premise of EA, not just ETG

zestyping 4y ago
The issue is primarily with motivated reasoning, not consequentialism, though naive consequentialism (also rampant in EA) can also be dangerous. ETG encourages people to think of the positive side of what they're doing (donating money) without considering the negatives (harmful careers). Being rich, and focusing on getting rich as a goal, distorts your thinking.
- tomp 4y ago
  The best paid careers are in HFT, which is far less harmful than e.g. ad optimisation (the business of most big tech)
  - zestyping 4y ago
    Interesting — could I hear your argument why?
    - tomp 4y ago
      The only people HFT “harms” are traders, i.e. voluntary participants in the “get rich” game who are likewise trying to win, but aren’t good enough. BigTech ads are instead non-consensually forced upon people and steal their attention (best case) or manipulate their thoughts/desires (worst case)
      - Dracophoenix 4y ago
        > BigTech ads are instead non-consensually forced upon people and steal their attention (best case) or manipulate their thoughts/desires (worst case) Those who make the ads and those who view them are voluntarily exchanging their time and attention with each other. They're traders in the same way high-frequency traders are.
        tomp 4y ago
        maybe in theory, but in practice ads are everywhere and completely unavoidable in everyday life

a_puppy 4y ago

> Unfortunately, one of the specific examples that gets the most attention is to go into high-frequency trading (instead of another career) so you can earn money to donate. If this is the argument, then the criticism should focus on HFT, not on EA. Most HFT employees aren't earning to give, and donate little to none of their income to effective charities. If HFT is harmful, then those non-EA HFT employees deserve at least as much criticism as EA HFT employees. So if you're worried about HFT, you should start with criticism of HFT, and if someone tries to defend HFT by bringing up EA, _then_ you can debate whether the benefits of earning-to-give outweigh the damage done by HFT. But this article, and your comment, are doing the exact opposite -- you're _starting_ with criticism of the EA movement, and only mentioning HFT in passing! It comes across as looking for an excuse to criticize EA, rather than being genuinely concerned about harm caused by HFT.

zestyping 4y ago
EA advocates of earning to give are telling people to _switch_ to an HFT career _as an ethical choice_. The criticism here is of the claim that _earning to give_ is charitable, not a claim that HFT is charitable.