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Comment by kr0bat | Hacker News Reader

The problem with EA isn't a focus on objective METHODS to do good, but with the belief that there are potential recipients of "good" that are objectively better targets than others, and the belief that finding objectively better targets is even achievable.

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EA does not believe there are objectively better recipients, only objectively more cost effective. It's not about moralizing at all. You can choose whatever objective function you want, there are some ways to achieve that objective that are more cost effective.

Does EA not believe in objectively better recipients?

    MacAskill writes that QALYs can be used to decide which charitable causes to prioritise: faced with a choice between spending $10,000 to save a 20-year-old from blindness or the same amount on antiretroviral therapy for a 30-year-old with Aids – a treatment that will improve their life and extend it by ten years – MacAskill argues it would be better to perform the sight-saving surgery, as the 20-year-old can expect to live another 50 years. He acknowledges that QALYs are an “imperfect”, “contested” measure but sees them as mostly good enough.

MacAskill does, but he's doing applied ethics here. EA is a normative ethical framework. You are free to disagree with his objective function and still be EA as long as you are thinking about how to maximize your own.

So it's just as good to give 1,000 to someone with a 6 digit salary as to an African peasant?

No. In utilitarian EA terms it’s 100% the opposite, you should give it to the peasant because they’ll get a lot more utility out of it.

that was entirely my point. it's extremely hard to beat giving to the global poor.

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