Effective Altruism Is a Welter of Lies, Hypocrisy, and Eugenic Fantasies
truthdig.com
truthdig.com
The problem is that it quickly becomes an invitation to ideas like longtermism. Which involve long chains of potentially flawed reasoning, leading to the belief that you're doing tremendous good. And with confirmation bias making it hard for you to doubt your logic, leading to an unbounded potential for error.
As the old moral goes, "Nobody is as easy to fool as a person who wants to fool himself."
This problem is not original to EA. The history of the 20th century is full of potential utopias. On the basis of the end justifies the means, the prospect of infinite good justifies unlimited harm. Unlimited harm came in the form of wars, famines, and mass repression. But the utopian futures never materialized.
That said, there is a lot of good to the idea of EA. It is better to do something effective than to virtue signal. But we should also be biased towards wins we can be more sure are real. Things that are short term and concrete. The more distant and hard to measure the win, the more that we should bias ourselves to the belief that we're missing something.
known for ages* by the phrase "the end does not justify the means"
* exitus acta numquam probat
"Rational" is a dangerous word. On the surface, it sounds like "smart". But if you take rationalism to the extreme, it becomes epistemological opposition to evidence. You build mental models and make logical conclusions without considering if the conclusions are also valid in the real world.
Scientific worldview is closer to empiricism than rationalism. You start by assuming that your mental models are wrong. They may still be useful, but you have to make observations and experiments and consider the evidence to determine that.
Effective altruism is a useful concept. It only becomes problematic once you get too deep into rationalism. The effectiveness of your altruism is fundamentally an empirical question, and it should be answered by empirical means rather than by reasoning.
However common sense "be nice to people" etc kind of works.
We haven't been reading the same article I think for you've got an extremely gentle take on this.
TFA specifically how the "poster boy" of the EA movement bought its way into having a best-seller by using $10m of stolen money gifted by FTX to propel his book ("based on marketing, not merit" according to TFA) and how that same person bought a $16m 15th century mansion in the UK using stolen FTX money.
All the while they were presenting SBF as an "altruistic genius driving a Toyota Corolla" while they fully knew he was living an ultra-lavish lifestyle.
It's now a fact that SBF is a criminal and the EA movement still hasn't given the ill-acquired donations from SBF back.
I hope that John J. Ray III (the person who was in charge of the EA liquidation and now the FTX liquidation) goes after that mansion in the UK and manages to claw money back from the EA movement. There's hope though as 15 years after the Enron scam money was still clawed back.
A clever religion founder probably engineered the thing from end to beginning where they found the conclusion they wanted and then worked their way back through their argument to see where they could sneak in a flawed premise or argument to make it work.
I don't understand what I'm supposed to see in it. Could you clarify?
But the trolley problem shows that in practice we care more about whether we were the one to throw a switch than the cost in human lives of our decision.
Pretty simple, 1<5, and taking no action has no material difference to taking an action. It's a choice either way.
My favorite line of research involving this is using the trolley problem to get at hidden moral biases that we normally wouldn't admit to ourselves.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/given-the-choice-liber...
The problem with "effective altruism" is much simpler. Most of the people behind it were crooks.
He also says things like, "leading EAs were spending large sums of money on Oxfordshire palaces". One is bad enough and I don't fully trust his reporting on it when he blithely claims that that multiple palaces were bought.
I've recommended "The Life You Can Save" to multiple people because the book had a great impact on me. Most of the things being claimed critics make of EA sound completely alien to me, such as justifying getting filthy rich because at some point you will be giving half of it away. I'm sure people use EA in that way, but does EA promote that view? In the same way, the eugenics movement try to hijack the theory of evolution to justify behavior that the theory itself says nothing about.
I think a lot of people find the concept of EA morally threatening. Their natural reaction is to want to "take those people down a peg" because they perceive EA as an incursion on the moral high ground. I think this tendency is more pronounced among the left. Rather than discuss "how can we do good and get the best bang for buck and is this movement doing that?" they'll focus on people they think have illegitimately gained status and pillory them.
I think the EA "brand" should be more careful to avoid this very natural "crab bucket" type of moral backlash. IMHO a good start would be to de-emphasise "high flyers" and direct focus towards the many unpretentious people who do their best to do "a little good".
> colonize space, plunder the vast resources of the cosmos
The author obviously tries to draw a parallel between inter-earth colonization and plundering to make longtermism and by proxy AE look bad.
I'm not an EA but I've never met people more receptive to criticism as they are. This is a group of people, uniting around a desire to do good, actually going through with it, and somehow catching a huge amount of flak for it.
Was I duped? I don't think so. SBF's downfall has definitely shaken my confidence in EA as a trustworthy institution, but I still generally feel great about those donations and will likely repeat them again next year (albeit with a closer look at exactly how the funds are distributed).
As with many things, it easier and more fun to disparage movements than it is to get involved and make positive change. This article is a good example of that.
no, but you should investigate the claims and verify that the criticism is fair.
It's not "joining the cult", unless you consider altruism as a whole to be the cult.
And there's a sickness in our society, that a person/movement/concept is judged by those associated with it, instead of on its own.
This seems a bit odd... the issues happened within the context of the group's activities and the problems were shielded by EA. This is like suggesting the Catholic Church had nothing to do with child abuse and we should only blame the priests.
At least in the Bay Area, I heard that the people who regularly organize in-person events will refuse entry to certain men who have a history of preying on women, but really there is no way to prevent those men or anyone else from persisting in publicly proclaiming that they are effective altruists.
Similarly, effectivealtruism.org is just one non-profit in an ecosystem of dozens and does not own the trademark "effective altruism" or "effective altruist" (which might give it some ability to control how the trademark is used or by whom it is used).
You're overgeneralizing too far. This is like saying just because a church has a building doesn't mean they are an organization. The building was purchased with the expressed intent of being used for the group. It appears you trying to suggest there are weak ties where there are actually strong ones. These people all know each other and shared ideas.
I'm not a huge fan of EA, but I'm sick of seeing HN and EA endorse tribalism by saying that all Christians this or all Republicans this or all white people that or all rich people that....
-rich white Republican Christian
But I also don't want the markets dictated by the whims of some dissociated jackoff arrogantly and ineffectively disbursing obscene amounts of money, and certainly not with the momentum of some centralized institution. I need cheaper food and cheaper rent and cheaper utilities prices to be able to effectively act as an altruist - you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others - and when all of the resources are being siphoned off and distributed to the top, myself and millions of others simply lack the capacity.
And if many hands makes for little work, doesn't that give way to a more effective framework than a handful of people controlling affecting altruism? I reckon so.
Not to mention the whole free market thesis being wholly disrupted by the shrinkage of the middle class in developed nations, leaving the have-nots subordinated to the haves and ever more preoccupied with just getting by.
Poor people in underdeveloped nations also need help.
EA targets the latter need, but that does not invalidate the former need.
Unfortunately, people like SBF, who it'd be fair to consider enemies of the working class, associated themselves with EA and have tarnished the brand.
I also think I should be taxed more and more taxes should be used for social programs and welfare, I'm certainly not best positioned to decide the most effective use of my money.
The stated goals put it (warm fuzzies donation) at less important than being effective (but still required so you don't burn out). So to the first order, your comment is incorrect.
However, perhaps you meant something more like "Ea trains you to be happy with making donations which which are more 'effective'", which would be true. And maybe a touch of pride/smugness for having figured it out.
If the organization is truly bad, then facts will speak for themselves. IMO heavy editorialization is a sign of a weak argument.
Effective Altruists hijacked their original, not-terrible idea into a cult.
Not everyone wants to do the math themselves so there's some communication involved in sharing that research.
And as with any cause, outreach can be very productive as well. Unless you're so wealthy that you think you can solve the world's problems all by yourself, you might find it worthwhile to spend some time on advocacy.
It seems like an unnecessary qualifier. E.g. I could make up 'effective frugality' but the efficiency factor of frugality is already implied. Nobody out there is pushing 'ineffective altruism' either. The effective branding seems like it is simply putting on a layer of ideology and/or branding over the existing term in order to sell it.
Those are all good in their own way, but EA is very much a branch in its own direction away from that, and I think it's worth having some kind of qualifier to specify in what way EA is philosophically different.
Everyone who engages in altruism is trying to further a goal. Everyone thinks that the more effective their actions in pursuing that goal, the better. Is that really different than ea (not EA)?
It seems to me that the difference is more about strategy than philosophy.
I've seen countless efforts to "fight" climate change by very feel-good but ineffective methods, like... spending thousands of dollars on algae sculptures for an art museum. Effective altruism brings the effectiveness to the forefront as an explicit priority. Like, are there other things we could do for a thousand dollars that might have a million times bigger impact on CO2?
A lot of people really don't think about that, or at least don't treat it as a priority. And some charities are even happy to tread water forever while never engaging with solving a problem, just to maintain the status quo and the need for that charity.
i see having local impact as something very important. but i have not looked very closely at EA yet, and maybe EA does not consider that, i don't know.
https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/28/celebrated-charities-th...
TFA literally explains how a $18m donation with stolen money was used by the EA movement to buy a lavish mansion.
TFA also explains of the EA movement was lauding SBF for driving in a beaten up Toyota Corolla even though they fully knew he was living in a $40m luxury mansion in the Bahamas while flying private.
What makes you think most of the money you donate to such gurus actually end up to charitable causes ?
If you want to donate, donate directly to charitable causes instead of donating to obvious charlatans.
The EA movement tarnished its reputation by being accomplice in defrauding people's money in the FTX scam.
They played the "SBF is an altruistic genius driving a Toyota Corolla" card while they knew it wasn't true and people fell for it.
Turns out: there was no altruistic genius. And that's a decision of justice: guilty on seven criminal counts.
Maybe "EA" should be renamed "EC": "Effective Criminals"?
In other words: GP's comment defends EA without taking into account the facts shown in TFA.
Article is BS, that money wasn't stolen. The decision making behind the purchase was transparant. Furthering the cause of EA itself was a goal of the specific fund from which they drew that money [1]. It gives them a place to have big nice conferences, which drives donations which will well exceed $16M.
Anyway, I didn't donate to that fund. I donated to the Global Dev fund [2]. If you donated to fund [1], then you knew your money would be spent on stuff like conferences.
[1] https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/ea-community
[2] https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/global-development
Billionaires who live luxurious lifestyles and donate to prevent AI catastrophes was not something I was aware of at all prior to ~2021. I'm not sure how that ever became part of the movement.
In fact, longtermism in general wasn't something I was aware of until sometime around then. Purchasing mosquito nets, vaccines, and deworming medication has a demonstrable impact for saving lives and objectively reduces human suffering. In contrast, while AI, nuclear warfare, etc. can indeed kill billions, donating to those charities has absolutely no demonstrable impact. It's possible it has an impact, but it is near impossible to prove.
GiveWell states the following:
> GiveWell evaluates potential top charities along four main criteria: (1) Effectiveness, as supported by evidence the program the charity is implementing saves or improves lives; (2) cost-effectiveness, or how much ‘bang for the buck’ the charity offers in terms of lives saved or improved per donation; (3) room for more funding, or the charity’s ability to put additional donations to use; and (4) transparency.
So certain charities likely do save lives, but would never be recommended by GiveWell because they aren't transparent enough to verify that. There has to be concrete proof in order to get a recommendation, which is a perfectly reasonable decision on their part, and something I thought was the felt among all in the EA community until I heard some advocating for charities to reduce the chances of AI catastrophes and nuclear warfare, but those people always felt like a fringe part of the community until they started getting more news coverage.
I'm not condemning longtermism outright, I think those who with the appropriate skills should work towards reducing the likelihood of nuclear warfare and AI induced disasters, but I don't see how it could possibly be considered "effective" altruism to donate money to charities tackling those issues considering we have not the slightest clue as to whether it's effective.
In a world where people die of preventable and curable diseases because governments choose not to spend more (or more effectively) on foreign aid, I absolutely believe it is critical that people take responsibility for saving those that they can. If I see someone drowning at the beach, I'm not going to say "Well I'm not going to save them because the government didn't pay for lifeguards." Sure, they probably should have, but at the end of the day someone is living or dying based on my decision: I'm going to try to save them. The same is true for those dying of malaria, neglected tropical diseases and malnutrition: yes, I believe governments should take responsibility for those issues, but they haven't, and if I don't donate what I can, more people will die. Hundreds of thousands die each year from malaria and NTDs and millions from malnutrition. While I'm not remotely capable of solving those issues, I absolutely am capable of saving some of those people, which certainly has an enormous impact on those I can save (also, while hundreds of thousands die from malaria each year, millions suffer from it but survive, so not only can reduce death but also pain.) I think trying to get more people to donate to charities that are demonstrably effective at saving lives is extremely important. With the "Effective Altruism" movement now including stuff like longtermism, as well as having its reputation ruined, I'm not sure how advocacy should move forward. On one hand, I don't think it'd ever be good for it to be an ideology: one should evaluate individual concepts by themselves, not tie them into some larger ideology and then decide based on one's personal feelings towards that ideology whether to support it. Still, it's helpful to have terms to describe concepts in fewer words, as well as have tangible goals for advocacy, as the more people that donate to charities that effectively save lives, the more lives that are saved overall.