Put aside the altruistic argument. In a free market -- and assuming no fraud, force, externalities, monopolies*, etc. -- if someone pays you a billion dollars, you have provided at least a billion dollars in benefit to that person. If someone pays you $25,000, you have provided at least $25,000 in benefits. The first is more likely to have accomplished good in the world.
* Technically, a monopolist also provides at least what he is paid in benefits. But he captures more of that in producer surplus and inefficiently reduces output.
AIM's Founding to Give program ( https://www.aimfoundingtogive.com/ ) is more or less this idea, though what I've heard about the program as of yet makes me think they would be more conservative than you are regarding the odds of becoming a billionaire (or even reach something like 8 figures). I do think that it might not be neglected without good reason, and the reason might simply be that it is much harder in practice than it seems on the outside.
"Assuming no fraud, force, externalities, monopolies, etc" makes this have no correlation with any real markets anywhere, ever, though. You're much more likely to become a billionaire by stepping on peoples necks rather than through perfectly balanced market dynamics.
Everyday there's something new that so flabbergasts me as to actually how out of touch with reality the analytic school is. Forget the shrimps, this has to be your worst philosophical take ever. I can't believe what my eyes just read.
"if you’re interested in trying seriously to become a billionaire" does it have to imply moving to America, or being young, or working super hard hours? I don't even want to go full billionaire, if anyone has any ideas how to get 2x fuck-you money, I would donate half of it to EA.
Do philosophers not study Plato any longer? Because the drowning child "thought experiment" is crying out for some really basic Socratic elenchus to demonstrate that people don't really mean what they are saying. Instead of leaping on their initial knee jerk response you need to ask them if their answer would differ if
1. You have two toddlers with you. One is your only child, you have given explicit guarantees to the parents of the other for its safekeeping. Both at very high risk of drowning if you temporarily abandon them.
2. As above, you have just child 1 with you.
3. As 1., you have just child 2 with you.
4. There's someone there who says That's my child, I will go.
5. There's someone there who says I am a professional lifesaver, I will go.
6. You think there's a 49% chance of saving the child and a 51% of you and the child drowning, and you don't see any reason to value the child's life higher than yours
If you like fancy philosophical thought experiments add
7. A trolley problem theorist comes along and says If you rescue that child I will pull this 6 person killing lever
and
8. You are an exceptionally eloquent effective altruist on your way to a meeting with a cabal of billionaires. You are confident that your arguments will secure funding to rescue a trillion insects a year from a horrible death. Conversely a no-show will enrage them so much that they discontinue existing programs already saving 100 billion insects a year.
So that's 8 sets of circumstances where the answer is Perhaps I will stay on the bank, all of them mirroring real world issues about competing obligations.
This is very closely analogous to a con trick. Traditional con artists rely on a strong human instinct to give the wrong answer to a trick question: of course I trust you vs of course I don't trust you, I have only known you for 10 minutes. So does this. The instinctive answer is Yes of course, the actual answer is It depends on things like my competing obligations to others (and indeed to myself) competing obligations of others to the child, cost benefit calculations and other things. So I don't see this as Singer making a zinger of a philosophical point. He is bragging about a transparent deception.
I agree with this, but one thing has always bothered me. It might make more sense with the other example of “why doesn’t the Vatican sell all their art and give the money to the poor.” If you’re extremely rich, most of your net worth will come from securities or equity in your company, I guess. So if you want to give that wealth away, you have to liquidate it by selling shares for cash, which you can then donate. So far, so good. But every share you sell needs a buyer. You are in effect asking that buyer to spend that money on a share instead of donating it to charity.
In reality, if I were super rich, I wouldn’t lose sleep over this and I would just sell the shares, but I feel like there’s something wrong on a strict logical level.
The company doesn't disappear though. If you start a billion dollar company and then sell it and give the money to charity, society still has one billion dollars worth of your company, and one billion dollars worth of charity. Even if you assume all the new shareholders would have given the money to charity, you have still increased society's wealth by one billion dollars.
Put aside the altruistic argument. In a free market -- and assuming no fraud, force, externalities, monopolies*, etc. -- if someone pays you a billion dollars, you have provided at least a billion dollars in benefit to that person. If someone pays you $25,000, you have provided at least $25,000 in benefits. The first is more likely to have accomplished good in the world.
* Technically, a monopolist also provides at least what he is paid in benefits. But he captures more of that in producer surplus and inefficiently reduces output.
AIM's Founding to Give program ( https://www.aimfoundingtogive.com/ ) is more or less this idea, though what I've heard about the program as of yet makes me think they would be more conservative than you are regarding the odds of becoming a billionaire (or even reach something like 8 figures). I do think that it might not be neglected without good reason, and the reason might simply be that it is much harder in practice than it seems on the outside.
If we get just 1% of wealthy western populations to donate just $100 to me...
Just make sure you don't pull an SBF. He made good bets, but that didn't end up mattering!
Hell yeah
I mean this with love but you suck at estimating probabilities
an estimated 1/100 chance of becoming a billionaire is insane.
"Assuming no fraud, force, externalities, monopolies, etc" makes this have no correlation with any real markets anywhere, ever, though. You're much more likely to become a billionaire by stepping on peoples necks rather than through perfectly balanced market dynamics.
Argh I meant to reply to bruce with this. Still figuring substack out.
Everyday there's something new that so flabbergasts me as to actually how out of touch with reality the analytic school is. Forget the shrimps, this has to be your worst philosophical take ever. I can't believe what my eyes just read.
nice to see a sane response here.
I want to be Richie Rich or Rich. But i prefer doing it like Bill Gates trying to create a value.
"if you’re interested in trying seriously to become a billionaire" does it have to imply moving to America, or being young, or working super hard hours? I don't even want to go full billionaire, if anyone has any ideas how to get 2x fuck-you money, I would donate half of it to EA.
Do philosophers not study Plato any longer? Because the drowning child "thought experiment" is crying out for some really basic Socratic elenchus to demonstrate that people don't really mean what they are saying. Instead of leaping on their initial knee jerk response you need to ask them if their answer would differ if
1. You have two toddlers with you. One is your only child, you have given explicit guarantees to the parents of the other for its safekeeping. Both at very high risk of drowning if you temporarily abandon them.
2. As above, you have just child 1 with you.
3. As 1., you have just child 2 with you.
4. There's someone there who says That's my child, I will go.
5. There's someone there who says I am a professional lifesaver, I will go.
6. You think there's a 49% chance of saving the child and a 51% of you and the child drowning, and you don't see any reason to value the child's life higher than yours
If you like fancy philosophical thought experiments add
7. A trolley problem theorist comes along and says If you rescue that child I will pull this 6 person killing lever
and
8. You are an exceptionally eloquent effective altruist on your way to a meeting with a cabal of billionaires. You are confident that your arguments will secure funding to rescue a trillion insects a year from a horrible death. Conversely a no-show will enrage them so much that they discontinue existing programs already saving 100 billion insects a year.
So that's 8 sets of circumstances where the answer is Perhaps I will stay on the bank, all of them mirroring real world issues about competing obligations.
This is very closely analogous to a con trick. Traditional con artists rely on a strong human instinct to give the wrong answer to a trick question: of course I trust you vs of course I don't trust you, I have only known you for 10 minutes. So does this. The instinctive answer is Yes of course, the actual answer is It depends on things like my competing obligations to others (and indeed to myself) competing obligations of others to the child, cost benefit calculations and other things. So I don't see this as Singer making a zinger of a philosophical point. He is bragging about a transparent deception.
So when you grow up, you want to be a philanthropic philosopher
I agree with this, but one thing has always bothered me. It might make more sense with the other example of “why doesn’t the Vatican sell all their art and give the money to the poor.” If you’re extremely rich, most of your net worth will come from securities or equity in your company, I guess. So if you want to give that wealth away, you have to liquidate it by selling shares for cash, which you can then donate. So far, so good. But every share you sell needs a buyer. You are in effect asking that buyer to spend that money on a share instead of donating it to charity.
In reality, if I were super rich, I wouldn’t lose sleep over this and I would just sell the shares, but I feel like there’s something wrong on a strict logical level.
"You are in effect asking that buyer to spend that money on a share instead of donating it to a charity"
Many buyers of stocks need no convincing to not donate to charities; that is what they'll do regardless.
Regarding the others interested in both stocks and donations: money spent on stocks is not lost, and may enable larger donations down the line.
The company doesn't disappear though. If you start a billion dollar company and then sell it and give the money to charity, society still has one billion dollars worth of your company, and one billion dollars worth of charity. Even if you assume all the new shareholders would have given the money to charity, you have still increased society's wealth by one billion dollars.