Four years ago, I asked three members of my close family who were likely to give me something for Christmas to make a donation to GiveWell/AMF (GiveWell’s top charity at that point) instead of getting something for me. This wasn’t burdensome at all for me, because I didn’t have many unmet material needs at this point.
Anyways, in my case, it turned out that my upper middle class American relatives, who were culturally “normal”, rather than being culturally close to any EA/Silicon Valley/rationality circles, were quite offended by this suggestion. This may have had something to do with my presentation—I don’t remember myself being particularly good at politics or speaking back then, and I tried to be nice, but perhaps I was too bold, or too culturally insensitive. Still, I was quite surprised at how poorly my request was received.
Of the three family members I talked to, two told me that I was being unrealistic, and that I needed to realize how things worked in the real world, or something like that. They got me something comparable to what they’d gotten me the previous year. The third one actually made a donation to the Carter Center, but only after bemoaning how I didn’t appreciate how hard making money was in the real world—I think they had liked the Carter Center because a friend had worked there, or something.
A couple family members I hadn’t talked to heard about my request, and I later heard that one had been talking with other members of my family about how she had become “very worried” that I was going to become “too altruistic”. Another actually bought a chicken (or goat?) in my name through Heifer International. That was interesting, since I had thought that I been clear that I preferred GiveWell’s top charities over other charities.
I guess that I completely stopped being vocal about EA after that point. Still, I’ve often wondered if the type of EAs who hold birthday and Christmas fundraisers are more, or less culturally normal-feeling to the average first-worlder than my family is.
(Also, since this comment is about how I’m terrible at understanding how to get the tone right on EA things, I apologize if the tone of this comment itself is somewhat off.)
Since I sort of danced my around making the point I wanted to make, here’s what I’d meant to say more bluntly:
Are EAs unknowingly offending large swaths of the population when they proselytize too loudly?
I think that people’s social circles are more homogeneous than they might predict, such that EAs tend to be friends with an incredibly large number of potential EAs, and relatively few people incompatible with EA.
Statement 2) can be the case even if there are very few potential EAs in the world.
Edit to add:
The fact that people on the EA forums and elsewhere keep posting about how fun and easy running a fundraiser is makes me question if I’m living on the same planet as you all.
Was your impression that your family was offended that you asked for them to make a donation instead of a gift? Or that it was relating to EA specifically?
I’ve heard of regular families doing donations instead of gifts. My own family already had members that asked for charity, so last year when I asked for donations to Givewell charities it went pretty fine.
(The previous year, they knew I cared about effective giving and they made a donation to some random “support a child in Africa” charity. I just said “Thank You” politely, and the next year I asked specifically for givewell charities.)
I can definitely see saying “I want everyone to donate to these charities because they’re the BEST” to go over poorly with people who already care about a particular charity, and I can see people being upset with “you should give 10% of your income.”
But “these particular charities are really important to me, and during the holiday season I’d really rather help people less fortunate that receive a gift myself. Would you consider giving whatever amount you’d have given me to these charities?”
One note (perhaps relevant to Soothsilver above) is that it may feel important to give tangible gifts. What my family does, when giving intangible gifts, is accompany them with a tangible simple of the gift.
1) Yours is not the first account of being offended I have heard. Unfortunately it makes sense. Everyone thinks of themselves as “being a nice person”, even if the only money they give to charity is a dollar a week to the homeless.
Pursuing the much loftier goal of eg. giving 10% attacks this fundamental identity basis; and since there is no argumentative recourse, they can only react on the emotional level. Its an immune response.
Four years ago, I asked three members of my close family who were likely to give me something for Christmas to make a donation to GiveWell/AMF (GiveWell’s top charity at that point) instead of getting something for me.
Do you remember what you said? Was it written (like a facebook post) or spoken?
Since I now don’t have any unmet material needs and what needs I do have are mostly Steam wallet funds which my family doesn’t like to provide, I also suggested they donate to a charity in my name.
They refused. Their argument was along the lines of “no, I don’t want to help other people, I want to give something that will make you happy”. But since they don’t want to give me video games, making me happy is probably not really what they want to do.
I guess I’ll just make a December donation off my own funds instead.
Four years ago, I asked three members of my close family who were likely to give me something for Christmas to make a donation to GiveWell/AMF (GiveWell’s top charity at that point) instead of getting something for me. This wasn’t burdensome at all for me, because I didn’t have many unmet material needs at this point.
Anyways, in my case, it turned out that my upper middle class American relatives, who were culturally “normal”, rather than being culturally close to any EA/Silicon Valley/rationality circles, were quite offended by this suggestion. This may have had something to do with my presentation—I don’t remember myself being particularly good at politics or speaking back then, and I tried to be nice, but perhaps I was too bold, or too culturally insensitive. Still, I was quite surprised at how poorly my request was received.
Of the three family members I talked to, two told me that I was being unrealistic, and that I needed to realize how things worked in the real world, or something like that. They got me something comparable to what they’d gotten me the previous year. The third one actually made a donation to the Carter Center, but only after bemoaning how I didn’t appreciate how hard making money was in the real world—I think they had liked the Carter Center because a friend had worked there, or something.
A couple family members I hadn’t talked to heard about my request, and I later heard that one had been talking with other members of my family about how she had become “very worried” that I was going to become “too altruistic”. Another actually bought a chicken (or goat?) in my name through Heifer International. That was interesting, since I had thought that I been clear that I preferred GiveWell’s top charities over other charities.
I guess that I completely stopped being vocal about EA after that point. Still, I’ve often wondered if the type of EAs who hold birthday and Christmas fundraisers are more, or less culturally normal-feeling to the average first-worlder than my family is.
(Also, since this comment is about how I’m terrible at understanding how to get the tone right on EA things, I apologize if the tone of this comment itself is somewhat off.)
Since I sort of danced my around making the point I wanted to make, here’s what I’d meant to say more bluntly:
Are EAs unknowingly offending large swaths of the population when they proselytize too loudly?
I think that people’s social circles are more homogeneous than they might predict, such that EAs tend to be friends with an incredibly large number of potential EAs, and relatively few people incompatible with EA.
Statement 2) can be the case even if there are very few potential EAs in the world.
Edit to add:
The fact that people on the EA forums and elsewhere keep posting about how fun and easy running a fundraiser is makes me question if I’m living on the same planet as you all.
Was your impression that your family was offended that you asked for them to make a donation instead of a gift? Or that it was relating to EA specifically?
I’ve heard of regular families doing donations instead of gifts. My own family already had members that asked for charity, so last year when I asked for donations to Givewell charities it went pretty fine.
(The previous year, they knew I cared about effective giving and they made a donation to some random “support a child in Africa” charity. I just said “Thank You” politely, and the next year I asked specifically for givewell charities.)
I can definitely see saying “I want everyone to donate to these charities because they’re the BEST” to go over poorly with people who already care about a particular charity, and I can see people being upset with “you should give 10% of your income.”
But “these particular charities are really important to me, and during the holiday season I’d really rather help people less fortunate that receive a gift myself. Would you consider giving whatever amount you’d have given me to these charities?”
One note (perhaps relevant to Soothsilver above) is that it may feel important to give tangible gifts. What my family does, when giving intangible gifts, is accompany them with a tangible simple of the gift.
1) Yours is not the first account of being offended I have heard. Unfortunately it makes sense. Everyone thinks of themselves as “being a nice person”, even if the only money they give to charity is a dollar a week to the homeless.
Pursuing the much loftier goal of eg. giving 10% attacks this fundamental identity basis; and since there is no argumentative recourse, they can only react on the emotional level. Its an immune response.
Do you remember what you said? Was it written (like a facebook post) or spoken?
I asked in person in two cases, and over the phone in one, I think. I don’t remember the wording I used very well.
Since I now don’t have any unmet material needs and what needs I do have are mostly Steam wallet funds which my family doesn’t like to provide, I also suggested they donate to a charity in my name.
They refused. Their argument was along the lines of “no, I don’t want to help other people, I want to give something that will make you happy”. But since they don’t want to give me video games, making me happy is probably not really what they want to do.
I guess I’ll just make a December donation off my own funds instead.