On the Giving What We Can website (or some other from the same memespace) there is (or was, as I can’t find it anymore) an extremely powerful calculator that upon input of your income calculates what your current relative position in the world is, how much it would be reduced by their recommended donation and what good this money could do in terms of physical action (like 23 people dewormed) and expected lifes saved. All the long discussion is extremely valuable but should be put aside to make these kind of visualisations more visible.
I am willing to bet that more people would be convinced by reading something along the lines of “$100 of your annual income would knock you down only by 0.1% on the income distribution, but it would help educate 63 people about basic hygiene and prevent 12 expected child deaths” than by anything else.
(If your after-tax family income is $100k, for a 2-adult 0-child family in the US then you’re in the top 0.8% before giving 10% and the top 1.0% after, and this is alleged to be equivalent to saving 3 lives per year. Make it $50k/year and it’s top 3.9% → top 4.7% and 1 life per year. In the other direction, at $200k/year it’s top 0.1% → top 0.1% and 6 lives. I don’t know how compelling those numbers would be to the people they’re relevant to. For the avoidance of doubt, I am able to halve and double the number 3, but rounding could have affected the figures a little.)
I have a bit of an uneasy feeling about comparing your wealth percentile before and after. It rather gives the impression that your reason for wanting to earn more is to be ahead of as much of the population as possible. Which I suppose it is, to some extent for most people, but it seems like it shouldn’t and it’s unfortunate to be encouraging that mode of thinking.
(I guess that the actual intended thought process is less “well, OK, I’ll still be in the top 0.6%, which is good enough for me, so I’ll go ahead and donate” but “well, I suppose it’s kinda indecent to begrudge a bit of my income when even after donating I’ll be in such a privileged position in global terms”—which isn’t quite so bad, but still doesn’t seem like how anyone ought to be thinking about their income.)
Does anyone know of a “calculator” similar to the one linked above that shows your worldwide rank in terms of net worth AND allows negative net worth? (I will gladly accept a table instead of a calculator.)
Bafflingly, http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth silently converts negative numbers into their absolute values, resulting in ridiculous claims. (For example, an underwater home equity of −100000 USD is interpreted as 100000 USD.)
Which I suppose it is, to some extent for most people, but it seems like it shouldn’t and it’s unfortunate to be encouraging that mode of thinking.
You don’t encourage it, you use it. It will be there no matter what you do as humans are social creatures under heavy competition. We can speculate about the reasons but it is what it is.
Would be happier with a calculator that instead suggests an equivalent of the money to be donated considering tax-deductibility? I am imagining something like “You can donate $10k per year to do X, equivalent to about Y1 number of coffees, Y2 movie tickets, Y3 beers, …” The point of htese calculators is to visualise the stark contrast in life between first world countries and target nations.
You don’t encourage it, you use it. It will be there no matter what you do
It will, I’m sure, but I think the boundary between using and encouraging is a fuzzy one. (So, I guess, is the boundary between discouraging and denying. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not saying we shouldn’t pretend people don’t care about relative status. Just that we shouldn’t prompt them to think in those terms.)
a calculator that instead suggests an equivalent of the money to be donated
Thank you for your work.
On the Giving What We Can website (or some other from the same memespace) there is (or was, as I can’t find it anymore) an extremely powerful calculator that upon input of your income calculates what your current relative position in the world is, how much it would be reduced by their recommended donation and what good this money could do in terms of physical action (like 23 people dewormed) and expected lifes saved. All the long discussion is extremely valuable but should be put aside to make these kind of visualisations more visible.
I am willing to bet that more people would be convinced by reading something along the lines of “$100 of your annual income would knock you down only by 0.1% on the income distribution, but it would help educate 63 people about basic hygiene and prevent 12 expected child deaths” than by anything else.
Here it is.
(If your after-tax family income is $100k, for a 2-adult 0-child family in the US then you’re in the top 0.8% before giving 10% and the top 1.0% after, and this is alleged to be equivalent to saving 3 lives per year. Make it $50k/year and it’s top 3.9% → top 4.7% and 1 life per year. In the other direction, at $200k/year it’s top 0.1% → top 0.1% and 6 lives. I don’t know how compelling those numbers would be to the people they’re relevant to. For the avoidance of doubt, I am able to halve and double the number 3, but rounding could have affected the figures a little.)
I have a bit of an uneasy feeling about comparing your wealth percentile before and after. It rather gives the impression that your reason for wanting to earn more is to be ahead of as much of the population as possible. Which I suppose it is, to some extent for most people, but it seems like it shouldn’t and it’s unfortunate to be encouraging that mode of thinking.
(I guess that the actual intended thought process is less “well, OK, I’ll still be in the top 0.6%, which is good enough for me, so I’ll go ahead and donate” but “well, I suppose it’s kinda indecent to begrudge a bit of my income when even after donating I’ll be in such a privileged position in global terms”—which isn’t quite so bad, but still doesn’t seem like how anyone ought to be thinking about their income.)
Does anyone know of a “calculator” similar to the one linked above that shows your worldwide rank in terms of net worth AND allows negative net worth? (I will gladly accept a table instead of a calculator.)
Bafflingly, http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth silently converts negative numbers into their absolute values, resulting in ridiculous claims. (For example, an underwater home equity of −100000 USD is interpreted as 100000 USD.)
I have found one at http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-distribution-of-net-worth-in-united.html that is for household net worth in the United States.
Thank you.
You don’t encourage it, you use it. It will be there no matter what you do as humans are social creatures under heavy competition. We can speculate about the reasons but it is what it is.
Would be happier with a calculator that instead suggests an equivalent of the money to be donated considering tax-deductibility? I am imagining something like “You can donate $10k per year to do X, equivalent to about Y1 number of coffees, Y2 movie tickets, Y3 beers, …” The point of htese calculators is to visualise the stark contrast in life between first world countries and target nations.
It will, I’m sure, but I think the boundary between using and encouraging is a fuzzy one. (So, I guess, is the boundary between discouraging and denying. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not saying we shouldn’t pretend people don’t care about relative status. Just that we shouldn’t prompt them to think in those terms.)
Yes, I think that would be healthier.