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Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did it fall short?
It justifies doing bad things for "the greater good".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did it fall short?
It is purely people justifying doing the evil things they personally desire by claiming some unverifiable benefit that accrues to hypothetical future people who may never even exist.
The title is unfairly conflating the idea with one organization. Plenty of people quietly donate some fraction of income to effective charities (effective altruism), without engaging with the Effective Altruism institution. Though, yeah wow, I didn't realize how cliquey Effective Altruism had become.
No thanks.
The title is unfairly conflating the idea with one organization. Plenty of people quietly donate some fraction of income to effective charities (effective altruism), without engaging with the Effective Altruism institution. Though, yeah wow, I didn't realize how cliquey Effective Altruism had become.
Why do perfectly nice general descriptive terms so often become tightly bound with one small group and their whole very particular worldview?
In general I find it concerning when technical people encroach upon non-technical areas without giving a sufficient amount of respect to the people who were in the field already. Those people, the experts, do know a lot and to have this kind of nerd savior branding of effective altruism, as if you are bringing the enlightenment that allows these poor altruists to finally be effective, well that just seems a little presumptuous.
"effective altruism" was never either effective nor altruistic. If people are finally working that out, good for them.
How did it fall short?
Also a problem with charity, especially in the US, is as the IRS defines it, it's not necessarily charitable. So it's easy to confuse altruism with plain old politics, vanity, and for-profit business disguised as a tax-exempt and then argue that anyone that disagree is not rational.
[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/against-longtermism-wi...
Like most things: EA as a concept is fine. Finding the "maximal" way to improve the lives of others is great, and finding better ways to contribute than charity and volunteering is honorable. The issue is when people take it to the extreme (like someone who literally argued that a person doing mere charity or volunteer work is bad , because they are wasting time and effort that they could've spent making money and re…
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]. :-)
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The title is unfairly conflating the idea with one organization. Plenty of people quietly donate some fraction of income to effective charities (effective altruism), without engaging with the Effective Altruism institution. Though, yeah wow, I didn't realize how cliquey Effective Altruism had become.