So I think it’s a decidedly uncharitable framing to imply that our analysis reduces everyone’s options down to the singular option of donating. An equally valid interpretation is that everyone now has unlimited options for how to save the world. You can be a computer programmer or an online poker player or a circus performer or anything else you love doing. Then you can turn the thing you love doing the most or what you’re best at (usually the same thing) into a vehicle for saving the world.
Characterizing all the millions of different ways to earn money for saving the world as just “donating” is like characterizing all books as “just paper” or all software as “just bits”. The means of transmission (paper, bits, donating) isn’t the important part for any of these. What we care about in practice is the content of those transmission mechanisms: the functioning of the software, the content of the book, or the career / economic activity that allows you to save the world.
I know you don’t argue explicitly against this, so I apologize for laying all this out in response to your comment. I hope you don’t mind me expounding on this here to try and develop a more helpful framing.
A less collapsed summary of the view you describe is:
1) Saving lives is good 2) X-risk reduction is a surprisingly high leverage way to save lives 3) Using money gives you more options for how to contribute to a cause, not less
So I think it’s a decidedly uncharitable framing to imply that our analysis reduces everyone’s options down to the singular option of donating. An equally valid interpretation is that everyone now has unlimited options for how to save the world. You can be a computer programmer or an online poker player or a circus performer or anything else you love doing. Then you can turn the thing you love doing the most or what you’re best at (usually the same thing) into a vehicle for saving the world.
Characterizing all the millions of different ways to earn money for saving the world as just “donating” is like characterizing all books as “just paper” or all software as “just bits”. The means of transmission (paper, bits, donating) isn’t the important part for any of these. What we care about in practice is the content of those transmission mechanisms: the functioning of the software, the content of the book, or the career / economic activity that allows you to save the world.
I know you don’t argue explicitly against this, so I apologize for laying all this out in response to your comment. I hope you don’t mind me expounding on this here to try and develop a more helpful framing.