Re:The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay
by willmacaskill on Monday April 06, 2015 @11:11AM
(#9328447)
This is a really tricky issue; there are lots of competing considerations either way. (e.g. the return you get from your money; but your donated money also generates a 'social return', which can be much higher than what you get in a bank. And you'll learn more about how to do good later on; but the world is also getting richer so there might be fewer outstanding opportunities in the future. Etc etc.) There's a summary of blogposts on the topic here: http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_...
There's the obvious counter-argument about not being able to guarantee that investments will increase in value, but I think the more compelling one is that it's an especially useful time to be donating. According to the UN:
> in 2011, 17 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day. That’s down from 43 percent in 1990.
It seems worth pushing to nearly-eradicate this "extreme poverty" now, rather than waiting another 20 years and doing something that would likely have a lesser effect on suffering.
Factor in the time-value of money, and the risk of investments. Is $100 going to be more useful to the EFF to stop bad law now, or is $200 in a couple years when they have to try to repeal bad law?
Take for example Bill Gates. If he had donated all his "surplus" money instead of building a business, he wouldn't have been able to donate the amount that he has; the amount wouldn't even be of the same order.