Comment by pawtrammell on A Rational Altruist Punch in The Stomach · 2020-03-17T03:09:53.277Z · LW · GW

Hi gwern, thanks for the reply.

I think you might be misunderstanding my points here. In particular, regarding point 2, I'm not suggesting that the waqfs split, or that anything at all like that might have happened. The “split waqfs” point is just meant to illustrate the fact that, when waqf failures are correlated for whatever reason, arbitrarily many closures with zero long-term survivors can be compatible with a relatively low annual hazard rate. The failure of a billion waqfs would be a valid observation, but it would be an observation compatible with the belief that the probability that a new waqf survives a millennium is non-negligible.

In any event--I should probably have reached out to you sooner, sorry about that! Now unfortunately I'll be too busy to discuss this more until June, but let me know if you're interested in going over all three points (and anything else regarding the value of long-term philanthropic investment) once summer comes. I would sincerely like to understand the source of our disagreements on this.

In the meantime, thanks for the Wellington R. Burt example, I'll check it out!