Hacker News Reader

Comment by emmanueloga_ | Hacker News Reader

Effective altruism (EA) is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". [1]

Seems like a good idea, if only just to have some sort of open-system for rating charities. I suspect the issue is everything that comes around the idea, specially... people. The problem is always people :-). Perhaps a "Michelin Guide to Charities" would be easier to market and explain? :-p

My favorite explanation of how "effective altruism" works is this SMBC comic [2]. :-)

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism

2: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-07-13

View on HN

> if only just to have some sort of open-system for rating charities

While the following examples aren't exactly _open_ systems, some organizations address the niche you highlight. Examples: https://www.givewell.org/, https://animalcharityevaluators.org/

I think _open_ is the important part:

Would make sense if anyone could come up with the score, following some "standard". That way one could make sure that no specific grader has incentives to give good scores speculatively (or even maliciously).

I encourage you to explore givewell's site. They are very transparent about their ratings and processes.

The problem with EA and other utilitarian systems of thought is two-fold. Firstly, you can't predict the future so really you're working off your biases. Secondly, unfettered by principles other than the end justifying the means, you can easily turn those aforementioned biases into justifications for committing horrible acts. Mass murder, or evidently, theft on a massive scale.

For instance:

"The technological revolution was a disaster for the human race... so I'm going to murder a few people to draw attention to my manifesto against technology."

"Social inequality is a disaster for the majority of my countrymen, so I'm going to murder the Bourgeoisie"

"My altruism is more effective than anybody else's, so I'm going to steal everybody else's money so that I can put it to better use."

How do you stop this shit? Deontological ethics. Don't murder, because murder is wrong. Don't steal, because stealing is wrong. Damn the consequences, stick to simple principles such as these.

>Firstly, you can't predict the future so really you're working off your biases.

Um, are you saying that this implies that people should just throw up their hands and donate to whatever causes since who knows? Surely not. Once we acknowledge that these questions can be tackled empirically, that's what EA tries to do. Is there room for bias in this process? Absolutely. Does that justify embracing some sort of epistemic nihilism? Absolutely not.

> > Firstly, you can't predict the future so really you're working off your biases.

> Um, are you saying that this implies that people should just throw up their hands and donate to whatever causes since who knows?

No, it implies that you shouldn't lecture others that you have the one true answer as to the best path forwards. You are free to (and in fact should) use your best judgment in your own personal choices, just don't confuse that with absolute truth.

I don't think EA institutions argue that they have the One True Answer. They just often give recommendations - "eg. if you care about maximizing QALY overall, we recommend charities X, Y, and Z." If I don't care about QALY maximization, fine. But if I do, why would I not listen to the recommendations?

Longtermism and QALY do not seem compatible.

EA and Longtermism are not the same thing.

However the linked article makes a pretty strong case that the two are increasingly interlinked, especially in the EA institutions.

They do if you legitimately think the long-term thing will kill everyone.

I don't think that myself, but it's internally consistent.

Peter Singer, one of the "founders" of effective altruism, argues pretty vehemently in his book "Effective Altruism" that the ends do NOT justify the means. Like you've said, doing that has lead some people to go off the deep end and do some horrifying stuff, so just because you think you can improve the world better than the guy next to you doesn't mean you should take the guy's money.

(Although, I've googled a bit and found a "counter"-example, where Singer argues that in a case where six innocent people could be wrongly accused of murder and killed, you should point at one as the perpetrator if it means only they get killed and the other five ones get let go, therefore saving five lives: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/866768837)

So yes, killing is morally wrong and should never be the mean to your end, but the rest is really muddy. Is stealing from the rich in order to feed the poor a justified mean? Is donating most of your money you make trading off the stock market, where other people have lost that money, a justified mean? Is lobbying against climate-unfriendly companies a justified mean?

> Peter Singer, one of the "founders" of effective altruism, argues pretty vehemently in his book "Effective Altruism" that the ends do NOT justify the means.

Even without such an argument, “the ends justify the means” isn’t a reason to do something in the real world, because there are no “ends” in the real world. Everything just keeps happening.

> "My altruism is more effective than anybody else's, so I'm going to steal everybody else's money so that I can put it to better use."

> How do you stop this shit?

If you ask yourself why you think "this shit" is bad, at root there will be a consequentialist reason. Deontological ethics is consequentialism by heuristics.

But if you ever try to put any consequentialist theories into practice, at root there will just be a set of deontological heuristics guiding your behavior. Consequentialism is just deontology in drag.

You're right. We are unable to be full consequentialist because the computational cost of seeing all ends is infinite, and unable to be full deontologist because competing heuristics are arbitrarily instantiated and mutually contradictory. Even if we're stuck in the middle forever, I know which way I'd strive.

Real heuristics, of course, are not arbitrary, they are the result of trial and error processes where societies and people with differing moral systems compete with each other, proving the fitness of their heuristic by surviving while less fit heuristics fail.

I'll go with the results of trial and error over long time horizons rather than blank slate theoretical calculations any day.

Heuristic selection as you describe is evolutionary. So the meme that survives may not have any bearing on human flourishing, just on its own viral ability to spread. Fitness of the heuristic is orthogonal to human benefit.

Further, when multiple heuristics are directly in conflict, it is up to the individual to make the final moral decision. The choice to reject one heuristic over another must be based in some moral calculus.

Finally, who said anything about blank slate? That's a clear straw man, as it's only logical for consequentialists to take current heuristics and their adherents into account.

Deontological ethics is worse than useless as aguide to doing good.

It only tells you what not to do, rather than what to do.

And it's full of exceptions and edge cases. Is stealing a loaf of bread from scrooge to stop a family from starving wrong? What if you call it "taxes" and the community voted on it? Is it murder to blow up a bridge in wartime? Is unplugging someone's life support murder? What if they're going to die in hours any way and you're out of life support machines for the patient who just came in and has good prospects?

Also, while we can't predict the future we all need to decide what to do. Sure, if you donate antimosquito nets to save kids from malaria one of them might grow up to become the next Hitler, but you should try and figure out on the balance of probability what the most likely outcomes are.

> Firstly, you can't predict the future so really you're working off your biases

Obviously. That is the human condition.

Do you not take actions in normal life because you don't have full knowledge of everything? Don't order breakfast because you don't know which menu item is for sure going to be the best.

> How do you stop this shit? Deontological ethics. Don't murder, because murder is wrong. Don't steal, because stealing is wrong. Damn the consequences, stick to simple principles such as these.

Simple rules like: dont hoard your money but find a worthy cause for it?

I agree with your second point that having deontological boundaries is important. Interestingly, people like Eliezer Yudkowsky (generally respected in the EA movement, I'm pretty sure?) also agree with you about that. He's been reiterating the point recently on twitter, though this post [1] says pretty much the same thing and it's from 2008. Generally, I'd attribute your examples of "utilitarianism gone wrong" to mental illness or sociopathy rather than to holding a utilitarian philosophy. For the average person, moral philosophy is much more of a way to explain the choices we make after the fact than a thing that actually determines the choices.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9ZaZXDnL3SEmYZqB/ends-don-t...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com