William MacAskill: belief

Transcript context

…Given how much innovation comes out of top schools, why is it crazy to make big donations to them? I see EA people criticize this fairly often, like, “Oh, don’t give your money to Harvard. Give it to bed nets.” But given the power of innovation, including your own — Peter Singer has been connected to all these schools. Why not make big donations to top universities? I think two things. One is the standard line of criticism of donations to big universities — among charitable gifts, I don’t really think that’s one of the ones we should be criticizing for being enormously ineffective, compared to ScotsCare or things that are promoting the opera or something, or the US Golf Society. On the other hand, if I’m going to promote research, I think a generic gift to Harvard is going to look pretty unlevered. I don’t think universities are, in general, in a great state in terms of how they can promote research compared to, say, independent research-focused organizations. In particular, when you’re donating to these universities with these enormous existing endowments, looking at what, in principle, happens there, where maybe even you’re trying to target the donation to some focused thing. Now, sometimes that can work, and then it’s good. We have funded a bunch of things — research institutes at major universities, including Oxford. But if you’re just giving a generic gift, then probably you’re just giving to Harvard as a whole. That’s fine. I do think universities produce enormous amounts of value, but probably you’re missing out on an opportunity to do something more focused that pays off sooner, as well. Well, take gifts to the opera, which you mentioned. Why should we not build monuments to what has been our greatest and most profound creations, just to show people, “We did this. This is really important. We still think it’s important.” It’s a kind of elitism, but nonetheless, isn’t it important to keep those traditions alive and highly visible?…

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