Consider the following scenarios: 1. A pundit makes a prediction you know is wrong. You'd like publicly challenge the pundit by offering a bet, but you don't trust them to pay up when they're wrong. The pundit doesn't know you, and probably doesn't trust you either. 2. You're an academic...
This is a rewrite of an old post of mine, incorporating ideas from Alicorn's earlier post on the same topic. One of the things stopping people from donating a substantial part of their income to charity is the risk of a future financial downfall, which can be anything from unemployment...
One of the things stopping people from donating a substantial part of their income to charity is the risk of a future financial downfall, which can be anything from unemployment to illness. Even in a rich country with a solid social safety net, the idea of having no financial buffer...
Consider the following scenarios:
This is a rewrite of an old post of mine, incorporating ideas from Alicorn's earlier post on the same topic.
One of the things stopping people from donating a substantial part of their income to charity is the risk of a future financial downfall, which can be anything from unemployment to illness. Even in a rich country with a solid social safety net, the idea of having no financial buffer at all seems daunting. However, if effective altruists precommitted to helping other effective altruists in need, they could all donate more money, as the risk would be spread.
This sounds a lot like insurance, and effective altruists could indeed insure themselves against a myriad... (read 580 more words →)
One of the things stopping people from donating a substantial part of their income to charity is the risk of a future financial downfall, which can be anything from unemployment to illness. Even in a rich country with a solid social safety net, the idea of having no financial buffer at all seems daunting. However, if effective altruists precommitted to helping other effective altruists in need, they could all donate more money, as the risk would be spread.
This sounds a lot like insurance, and effective altruists could indeed insure themselves against a myriad of risks. Unfortunately, insurers will reject claims whenever possible, some risks cannot be insured, and insurance requires monthly payment,... (read 475 more words →)
A crowdfunding network is functionally very similar to what I alluded to in my last question:
Can the emergency fund be registered as a charity? What changes would make its charity status unambiguous? For example, should the fund also provide recoupments to effective altruists who did not donate through the fund but donated directly to e.g. GiveWell, but scrutinize those recoupments more?
In a crowdfunding network, the crowdfunders decide for themselves if they consider the situation to be an emergency. In my version, a centralized fund would be the judge. I think the main advantage of my version is that people immediately know which door to knock on if they're in trouble.
Unless they are in a legitimate emergency situation, they are defrauding charity. Unfortunately, this doesn't stop everyone, but if they are caught, they would lose all of the money they donated. If I were the one committing fraud, this would seem very risky to me.
Fraudulent claims usually have different characteristics than non-fraudulent claims. If someone claims the full amount they're entitled to on a large sum of money, the fund should investigate that claim before giving the money.