The ‘effective altruists’ • Hacker News Board

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#51

Post by pdonis » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:33 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #45

lucajona wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. But if the only way you can avoid malaria is if someone gives you a bed net, then your ability to improve your own circumstances is still close to 0. You're still impoverished and powerless, you're just not dead. And now you're dependent on a source of bed nets that might dry up. If plain old reciprocal altruism hadn't somehow failed, there would be a way that you could exchange your labour or otherwise f…

Some people value their independence over a reduced risk of malaria. These people would turn down the anti-malaria net(utility doesn't change). Other people value a reduced risk of malaria over independence. These people would take the anti-malaria net(increased utility). So by offering a malaria net you are always benefiting people. So I don't think I know how a charity could reduce utility as long as the recipients…

You're assuming that just giving the bed net to the person is the only way of reducing their risk of malaria. You are not even considering, or allowing the person to consider, the option of trading their own wealth production for the bed net.

In other words, you're assuming they can have either independence or a reduced risk of malaria, but not both. What if having both is possible--but only if the charity is not there, so the person is forced to consider the third option? In other words, what if the second-order effect of providing charity to people is to make them unaware of other options that would actually provide more overall utility (because they would provide both independence and reduced risk of malaria, or whatever it is they're worried about)?

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#52

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:37 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #39

dmvaldman wrote: post #3

What I like about the effective altruist movement is the research they provide. What I don't like is the cultish behavior, and inherent bias that what I think is good is "universally" good. Effective altruism is nothing more than a rebranding of utilitarianism, and suffers from the same moral quandaries. Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? Should we all quit our jo…

I'm curious as to what are some alternate theories of how to do the most good besides a summing-like equation across individuals?

> I'm curious as to what are some alternate theories of how to do the most good besides a summing-like equation across individuals?

See, as one of many alternatives, Rawls works (perhaps most particularly Justice as Fairness, but also the earlier A Theory of Justice) which present an approach which considers the position of different individuals and groups, but does not optimize a summing-like equation (unless you take "summing-like" very loosely.)

But, ultimately, what constitutes what is desirable -- "the most good" -- is a subjective decision. Any philosophical/moral discussion of the most good is either about which axioms are most subjectively desirable to choose or which particular things fit a given set of axioms.

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#53

Post by gress » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:38 PM UTC

evanpw wrote: post #32

mrob wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sacrificing other people for a supposed "greater good" is highly unlikely to be beneficial because it destroys trust in society. It's a major cost if everybody has to be constantly wary of utilitarians pushing them in front of trolleys, and if everybody will betray you as soon as their calculations say it's a good idea then capitalism can't function, and capitalism is the only effective economic system yet discovered…

This seems like a straw man, but maybe this really is how some utilitarians think. My view is: if the cost in terms of trust lost is greater than the expected benefit of an action, then the utilitarian answer is not to do it. If the only way to prevent a "race to zero trust" is to make some bright line rules and enforce them universally, then that's the utilitarian answer. It's literally impossible for another ethica…

It's only literally impossible in an abstract mathematical world where the rule is somehow manifest as a law of nature.

In the real world, the rule can be nothing more than a belief that is applied by individuals in their decision making. One can easily see how this could lead to a wide range of perverse outcomes, primarily because the idea of a 'utility function' is not a real thing in the world and cannot be universally calculated.

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#54

Post by gress » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:40 PM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #24

dmvaldman wrote: post #3

What I like about the effective altruist movement is the research they provide. What I don't like is the cultish behavior, and inherent bias that what I think is good is "universally" good. Effective altruism is nothing more than a rebranding of utilitarianism, and suffers from the same moral quandaries. Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? Should we all quit our jo…

I don't get what people have against utility theory (if that's what you mean by utilitarianism). For me it's one of the few models that must be obeyed: there must be a way to create a partial order among possible choices. Whatever the reasoning behind your actions is, you are going to choose a single action (at each step) -- this forces you to choose the best. That's all utilitarianism is for me -- it tells you nothi…

The problem is there is no utility function and choices are path dependent.

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#55

Post by edanm » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:41 PM UTC

a3voices wrote: post #40

msilenus wrote: post #2

I've read this book together with the two books about Effective Altruism bei Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save and The Most Good You Can Do), and I have to say these books have really changed my life. I know it sounds cheesy, but I've never read books that had such a lasting influence on me. Those books provide just the right rational and scientific arguments and have shown me with how much cognitive dissonance I,…

I'd argue that being an effective altruist actually makes you less rational. As part of your genetic fitness, your brain is optimized for survival, reproduction, and keeping your children alive. If you're in the middle class and you give your money away then it goes against those objectives.

The objectives of "your genes" do not have to be your objectives. So you can be rational, but have different goals from what you were "meant" to (for some value of the word "meant").

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#56

Post by pdonis » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:42 PM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #24

dmvaldman wrote: post #3

What I like about the effective altruist movement is the research they provide. What I don't like is the cultish behavior, and inherent bias that what I think is good is "universally" good. Effective altruism is nothing more than a rebranding of utilitarianism, and suffers from the same moral quandaries. Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? Should we all quit our jo…

I don't get what people have against utility theory (if that's what you mean by utilitarianism). For me it's one of the few models that must be obeyed: there must be a way to create a partial order among possible choices. Whatever the reasoning behind your actions is, you are going to choose a single action (at each step) -- this forces you to choose the best. That's all utilitarianism is for me -- it tells you nothi…

> Whatever the reasoning behind your actions is, you are going to choose a single action (at each step) -- this forces you to choose the best.

This works at the level of individual choice, but it doesn't add up over multiple individuals, because you can't compare different people's utilities on the same scale. But the key claims of utilitarianism under discussion (the ones that are supposed to motivate people to donate to charity instead of purchasing luxuries for themselves) require adding up utilities over multiple individuals. Your argument doesn't justify utilitarianism in that sense.

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#57

Post by pdonis » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:46 PM UTC

jal278 wrote: post #9

dmvaldman wrote: post #3

What I like about the effective altruist movement is the research they provide. What I don't like is the cultish behavior, and inherent bias that what I think is good is "universally" good. Effective altruism is nothing more than a rebranding of utilitarianism, and suffers from the same moral quandaries. Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? Should we all quit our jo…

Many of the perceived problems with utilitarianism result from confusing "utility" with wealth, or in otherwise simplifying what optimizing human flourishing would actually look like in practice. Although reasonable people disagree on many principles of moral thought, a point of near-consensus is that if all other things are equal, we should try to reduce needless suffering as much as possible. For a great and nuance…

> if all other things are equal, we should try to reduce needless suffering as much as possible.

But all other things are never equal. So this near-consensus is useless in practical terms. The arguments always start over which other things that are not equal should affect one's decisions, and which shouldn't.

For example, take Singer's classic analogy between saving a drowning child at the cost of ruining your clothes, and donating to charity to save a child in a faraway country at the cost of some luxuries. Obviously a lot of things are not "equal" between these two scenarios, but Singer is claiming that none of those things matter: if you would save a drowning child at the cost of ruining your clothes, you should forgo luxuries to donate to charity.

But Singer ignores one glaring thing that is not equal, and which, IMO, does affect the choice you should make: drowning children are rare. That's why we have a moral consensus that we should save them even if it costs us a ruined set of clothes. If there were drowning children all over the place, and everyone was always having to drop what they were doing and save them and ruin their clothes and have to buy new ones, all the time, we would not have the same consensus. Instead, we would be asking why there are so many drowning children around, and would be taking different actions to prevent them from being at risk of drowning in the first place.

But that's exactly the position we are in with respect to world poverty. Poverty is not rare; historically, it has been the normal condition of almost all human beings who have ever lived. Those of us who are fortunate enough not to be in poverty cannot afford to treat it as if it were a rare emergency like a drowning child, because it's not rare, it's common. (It's hard for people who live in the developed world to see this because what defines the "developed" world is precisely that poverty, real poverty, is not common. In the US, for example, a "poor" person typically has enough food--in fact, too much, since a major health issue for the poor in the US is obesity--some form of shelter, access to public transportation, a cell phone, and an internet connection. That is not "poverty" by any reasonable historical definition--it certainly isn't compared to the condition of people in, say, sub-Saharan Africa. There are people in the US who are in real poverty by this definition, but they are very rare, so it's hard for people in the US to realize how common real poverty is elsewhere.)

So if we are going to fix poverty, we can't do it by helping individual poor people, one at a time. We have to fix it by asking why it is so common in the first place.

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#58

Post by a3voices » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:47 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #55

a3voices wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that being an effective altruist actually makes you less rational. As part of your genetic fitness, your brain is optimized for survival, reproduction, and keeping your children alive. If you're in the middle class and you give your money away then it goes against those objectives.

The objectives of "your genes" do not have to be your objectives. So you can be rational, but have different goals from what you were "meant" to (for some value of the word "meant").

Well perhaps that is true but then you will experience a lot more mental incongruity. For example, gay and transgendered people have much higher suicide attempt rates. The more you deviate from traditional family values, the unhappier you will likely feel. There is a big correlation I bet.

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#59

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:48 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #51

JamesBarney wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people value their independence over a reduced risk of malaria. These people would turn down the anti-malaria net(utility doesn't change). Other people value a reduced risk of malaria over independence. These people would take the anti-malaria net(increased utility). So by offering a malaria net you are always benefiting people. So I don't think I know how a charity could reduce utility as long as the recipients…

You're assuming that just giving the bed net to the person is the only way of reducing their risk of malaria. You are not even considering, or allowing the person to consider, the option of trading their own wealth production for the bed net. In other words, you're assuming they can have either independence or a reduced risk of malaria, but not both. What if having both is possible--but only if the charity is not the…

How does the charity prevent the person from buying a bed net?

So you're saying that when a charity provides bed nets, it causes individuals to make the irrational and sub-optimal choice of using a bed net without purchasing it. And this happens frequently enough to significantly reduce the utility that a charity provides?

This doesn't seem very intuitive to me. I am curious if you have any evidence that you could point me to show this effect happening. I'd be especially curious how the presence of the charity causes people to act irrationally.

Re: The ‘effective altruists’

#60

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:50 PM UTC

a3voices wrote: post #40

msilenus wrote: post #2

I've read this book together with the two books about Effective Altruism bei Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save and The Most Good You Can Do), and I have to say these books have really changed my life. I know it sounds cheesy, but I've never read books that had such a lasting influence on me. Those books provide just the right rational and scientific arguments and have shown me with how much cognitive dissonance I,…

I'd argue that being an effective altruist actually makes you less rational. As part of your genetic fitness, your brain is optimized for survival, reproduction, and keeping your children alive. If you're in the middle class and you give your money away then it goes against those objectives.

Genes are just part of the picture. Culture is as important - cultures evolve and are selected for fitness in almost the same way as genetics. This is a mammal thing, especially vivid in humans.

In fact, culture has been shaping genes far more than genes, culture. In the last 50,000 years Homo Sapiens genetic adaptation has increased manyfold, likely in response to environmental changes brought on by culture (agrarian societies, towns and cities, large-scale cooperative venture etc).

So the 'genes rule the organism' idea has been untrue for 1000 generations, for humans.