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The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

economist.com

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Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#31

Post by jakear »

> Over the past two years, I’ve heard many stories of young, ambitious people who came to effective altruism wanting to change the world but grew disenchanted.

> This disillusionment was partly because the community expends so much effort raising money for the proliferation of institutes and think-tanks that host its most prominent thinkers.

> Open Philanthropy, a foundation that Dustin Moskovitz helped to create, funds 80,000 Hours (over $10m since 2017),

Is this the same 80,000 hours as https://80000hours.org/? A self help guide and a job board? Listing Sam Bankman-Fried as the #1 anecdote? $10,000,000? Hm.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#32

Post by polygamous_bat »

To me, SBF embodied the worst stereotypes about the Effective Altruism movement. The not-so-subtle air of I'm-smarter-than-thou, the hubris to think whatever they have thought of haven't been thought and dismissed by others (probably for good reason), and a bull-headed focus on risk and return that can be exactly quantified, to the point of ignoring other, "softer" sides of the issue.

SBF isn't alone in this. In school, while interning for a competing hedge fund, I met a drove of Jane Street interns who thought exactly the same way, in terms of "EV" or expected value -- the mean outcome from a random event. For example, whenever we would go out for ice cream, they would try to flip a coin to see who pays, given the "expected cost" was same. This behavior is fine if you're a market maker betting 0.001% of your worth on a toss that you win 51% of the time, and I imagine this is why Jane Street tries to cultivate it. But unfortunately, in this hyperfocus on returns, they forgot that "risk"/"variance" exists, and sometimes flipping a coin will land you in such a deep hole that you can't continue to play the game long enough to dig yourself out of there.

You can read some thoughts by the man himself here, which flies in the face of all such work (Kelly bets, etc.) in variance minimization: https://nitter.net/SBF_FTX/status/1337250686870831107

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#33

Post by civilized »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #15

Maybe this is superficial, but I was put off by the name "effective altruism". By naming it such, it felt like an implicit dig that most altruism is not effective. Like oh your altruism is not that productive, but my altruism, well it's effective altruism. Especially when that notion is pushed by people who overlap with the rationalist subculture, another arrogantly named group. In general I find it concerning when t…

Is there a term you would deem acceptable for seeking to give to others in a cost-effective manner?

This seems to be a perfectly good idea. Doesn't it seem problematic that giving it a simple, straightforward name seems inherently arrogant and insufferable?

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#34

Post by wahern »

civilized wrote: post #14
losteric wrote: post #5

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.

It is sad! Distributing mosquito nets in malaria-afflicted areas saves lives on the cheap and is universally acclaimed. How better to describe this than "effective altruism"? Why do perfectly nice general descriptive terms so often become tightly bound with one small group and their whole very particular worldview?

> Distributing mosquito nets in malaria-afflicted areas saves lives on the cheap and is universally acclaimed. How better to describe this than "effective altruism"?

Philanthropy? Charity? Those words fit perfectly.

Does anyone sincerely set out to be ineffective in those endeavors? I can't imagine anyone who was knowingly insincere would have trouble also claiming the moniker of effective altruism. Nonetheless, I think the term "effective altruism" is also intended to encompass and imply some additional--if optional--characteristics about the giver or the form of giving, such as leading a more sustainable lifestyle or the consideration given to one's choices in choosing particular acts of charity. But we don't need that term merely for the act of distributing or funding the distribution of mosquito nets--philanthropy and charity are more than sufficient. And, technically speaking, charity has usually sufficed in any event--e.g. clergy who give their entire lives over to charity work weren't in search of more descriptive nomenclature, AFAIK.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#35

Post by polygamous_bat »

losteric wrote: post #27
didibus wrote: post #21

I've always found EA to be the most capitalist way of trying to do good. Instead of like being humble, not accumulating wealth for yourself, not thinking of yourself as better, etc. EA is pushing for this weird self-centered egotistical philanthropic avenue. That's literally the least efficient way to help anyone. This also always felt very American. I'll get rich by paying workers poorly, finding any advantageous lo…

> This also always felt very American. I'll get rich by paying workers poorly, finding any advantageous loophole I can, screwing customers, but once I'm rich I'll donate some of that money to do good... That also feels very inaccurate and misrepresentative of the philosophy. Rather, I'd say: live mindfully in a broken system. Pick a job that meets your needs with minimal intentional side-effects, donate some surplus…

That is a good and fair philosophy, except in my personal experience EAs have been very much a "paperclip maximizer" towards their (self-defined) goals of "bringing the most good to the world". From my point of view, claiming that the self-serving class of consultants and cryptobros donating 10% of their is not "true EA" sounds very much like a no true scotsman fallacy.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#36

Post by smallnamespace »

onetimeusename wrote: post #29
hardwaregeek wrote: post #15

Maybe this is superficial, but I was put off by the name "effective altruism". By naming it such, it felt like an implicit dig that most altruism is not effective. Like oh your altruism is not that productive, but my altruism, well it's effective altruism. Especially when that notion is pushed by people who overlap with the rationalist subculture, another arrogantly named group. In general I find it concerning when t…

that's a good way of putting it. I kind of ignored a lot of what they said but again, just like the rationalists who pretty much were all of the EA people, they came with biases they refused to admit they had. like for example, if a family member of mine needed money for a cancer treatment that had a 50% chance of working versus giving that money to save the life of someone I don't know on the other side of the plane…

> like for example, if a family member of mine needed money for a cancer treatment that had a 50% chance of working versus giving that money to save the life of someone I don't know on the other side of the planet, I will consistently try to save my family member.

So would most people, and we wouldn’t call it altruism. Looking for an objective criterion (whether ‘number of lives saved per dollar’ or something else) is an angle that I’m happy someone is taking. If you don’t like their approach then don’t give them money.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#37

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

yawnxyz wrote: post #24

I'm not familiar with Effective Altruism, but a takeaway as a tech person working in the clinical trial field: Most drugs go to market with the idea of being effective, e.g. treating as many people / conditions as possible. This leads to a problem that most people deal with a slightly different problem from the next person, so you just end up with large groups of small numbers of people who are essentially overlooked…

“Efficiency” isn’t a universally, objectively better goal, but it’s what technocrats focus on.

There are many other equally good (and often conflicting) possible goals: sufficiency, diversity, happiness, regret, etc.

The current economy focuses on efficiency because it’s about infinite capital accumulation using finite resources, and that’s what benefits the people at the helm.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#38

Post by MichaelCollins »

onetimeusename wrote: post #29
hardwaregeek wrote: post #15

Maybe this is superficial, but I was put off by the name "effective altruism". By naming it such, it felt like an implicit dig that most altruism is not effective. Like oh your altruism is not that productive, but my altruism, well it's effective altruism. Especially when that notion is pushed by people who overlap with the rationalist subculture, another arrogantly named group. In general I find it concerning when t…

that's a good way of putting it. I kind of ignored a lot of what they said but again, just like the rationalists who pretty much were all of the EA people, they came with biases they refused to admit they had. like for example, if a family member of mine needed money for a cancer treatment that had a 50% chance of working versus giving that money to save the life of someone I don't know on the other side of the plane…

> Why should I be asked to ignore my own family by annoying redditors who don't give a shit about me anyways?

You shouldn't; doing so would be irrational. There is a fairly decent chance that your relative, if they survive, will be in a position to help you in the future. But the random person on the other side of the planet? The chance of them randomly helping you in the future is about one in a few billion. Particularly if they don't know who their benefactor was, so they couldn't deliberately repay the favor to you.

So the rational/selfish position is to always put family and friends first, before strangers.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#39

Post by emmanueloga_ »

bradbeattie wrote: post #28
emmanueloga_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "…

> 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).

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#40

Post by MichaelCollins »

smallnamespace wrote: post #36
onetimeusename wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a good way of putting it. I kind of ignored a lot of what they said but again, just like the rationalists who pretty much were all of the EA people, they came with biases they refused to admit they had. like for example, if a family member of mine needed money for a cancer treatment that had a 50% chance of working versus giving that money to save the life of someone I don't know on the other side of the plane…

> like for example, if a family member of mine needed money for a cancer treatment that had a 50% chance of working versus giving that money to save the life of someone I don't know on the other side of the planet, I will consistently try to save my family member. So would most people, and we wouldn’t call it altruism. Looking for an objective criterion (whether ‘number of lives saved per dollar’ or something else) i…

> So would most people, and we wouldn’t call it altruism.

Most people would call helping a relative pay their medical bills altruism. It's also the selfish and rational choice. It's both simultaneously.

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