Investment and Inefficient Charity

An early-EA essay engaging Robin Hanson's claim (delivered, memorably, by 'Hansonning' a room of Berkeley charity donors) that you should INVEST charitable money at compound interest and donate just before death, since investment returns have beaten growth rates for 3000 years (the Ben Franklin $7M trust). Scott concedes the psychology (we want to be good NOW; we want to spread donations to feel we care about many things), surveys the rebuttals (GiveWell's 'we're running out of cheap good to do,' tax law, becoming-a-worse-person, singularity considerations), and runs a Fermi calc that awkwardly supports investing-then-donating unless you're >70% sure the world ends first — the opposite of the conclusion he expected.

Quality 68 · Strong. A well-written, honest early-EA piece — the Hanson set-piece is vivid and the Fermi self-surprise is a nice touch — but exploratory and early. Strong-low.

Claude’s paradigm shift 54 · Moderate. Engages and dramatizes Hanson's invest-then-donate argument plus the EA counter-considerations; fresh framing of a borrowed argument. Moderate.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A within-EA-discourse essay; no material-world effect. Within-blog influence.