Quiz: Should you be giving now... or waiting until you're retired?

a serious quiz for silly altruists

Not financial advice (:

1. Do you believe you have a special relationship people alive today, like how you have a special relationship with (and potentially special obligations to) your friends and family?

a. yes, I have a special relationship with this generation

b. I’m not sure; based on moral uncertainty I’ll give some extra weight to people alive today

c. I literally have a special relationship with people in the future

d. stop it, my special relationships are not based on time, if I even have them

2. Do you think you’ll have better giving opportunities in the future?

a. yes, we keep developing innovative new technologies and I can donate to scale those up

b. no, the world is getting richer, there are more opportunities to help people now than there will be in a few decades

3. Will you have better knowledge about the best giving opportunities in the future?

a. yes, I’m going to do more research or upskill in a particular area

b. yes, I’ll defer to Givewell or another charity evaluator and they keep getting better

c. no, I plan to stop thinking about charities starting today

4. Will you have better values when you’re old?

a. no, younger people seem to make better decisions than older people and/or my values keep getting more self-serving as I get older

b. yes, every year of my life so far my values have gotten better and/or older people seem to make better decisions than younger people

c. my values have literally never changed so…

5. Will you donating now inspire others to donate?

a. yes, because I donate to meta-charities like Giving What We Can

b. yes, because I’m a role model for my friends and family

c. honestly probably not

6. Would you be able to donate more when you’re older?

a. yes, actually!

b. I’d be able to donate more now, for tax reasons

c. no, my donations would be basically the same

d. no, if I have money in my bank account I’ll just end up spending it

Scoring:

Question 1: 1 point for a or b, 7 points for c, 4 points for d

Question 2: 7 points for a, 1 point for b

Question 3: 7 points for a, 7 points for b, 1 points for c

Question 4: 1 points for a, 7 points for b, 4 points for c

Question 5: 1 point for a or b, 4 points for c

Question 6: 7 points for a, 1 point for b, 4 points for c, 1 point for d

Results:

25-39 points: Donate now Maybe it’s inspiring others to give, maybe it’s guarding against the temptation to buy a yacht, maybe it’s just tax reasons, but it sounds like you could do more good by donating today. Go for it!

24 points: Perfect indifference Flip a coin, I guess?

0-23 points: Donate later Use the money to invest in your career first, and then in the stock market, and use the returns to help people in the future. Like when you retire, or when you die, or starting a foundation that pays out in centuries… okay maybe that’s too galaxy-brained. If returns on your investment are high enough, you might be able to help a lot more than if you were just donating now.

Straight-up stolen from Will MacAskill’s paper “When should an Effective Altruist donate?”