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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?

#121

Post by polygamous_bat »

JamesBarney wrote: post #107
eyelidlessness wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentions its philosophical underpinnings: utilitarianism. There’s a wealth of philosophical discussion of its own merits and problems. Reading the article but having been unfamiliar with the “effective altruism” term, I immediately recognized utilitarianism in it and the rest was predictable. It seemed a perfectly good idea to me too for some time, and still does with a slew of caveats. Giving it a simple…

What name is manipulative?

I assume the GP is talking about the name "effective altruism".

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

#123

Post by [deleted] »

yanderekko wrote: post #89

I've seen this criticism a few times and figured it was just ambiguous.... while the FTX affair is obviously bad for the institutions that represent the modern EA movement, to me this doesn't represent a real critique of EA as a philosophy. "Most EA supporters are techbros and FTX reinforces the view that techbros are bad, therefore EA is bad" is not a real argument, it's a sneer. Is the implication that I should sta…

[deleted]

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

#124

Post by circular_lights »

yanderekko wrote: post #89

I've seen this criticism a few times and figured it was just ambiguous.... while the FTX affair is obviously bad for the institutions that represent the modern EA movement, to me this doesn't represent a real critique of EA as a philosophy. "Most EA supporters are techbros and FTX reinforces the view that techbros are bad, therefore EA is bad" is not a real argument, it's a sneer. Is the implication that I should sta…

"but my _intentions_ were pure" lol who falls for that anymore

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

#126

Post by polygamous_bat »

yanderekko wrote: post #95
armchairhacker wrote: post #10

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…

>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 recruiting to contribute more charity and volunteering) I mean, the concern here is that coming off as an asshole can be self-defeating, not that these views are actually incorrect, right? Seems…

1. Both of them are concerns. 2. In case you are really lacking that much self awareness, yes, you are coming off as one in this conversation. You may call me "sensitive" and feel better about yourself now.

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

#127

Post by unmole »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #93
ketzo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think it was a very explicit dig. The founding idea is that giving $10,000 to save, y’know, four ailing dogs with bad livers or whatever, or a community theater, as opposed to many human lives, is fundamentally wrong. “If you’re gonna give, you should maximize the impact as measured in human life” is fundamentally at odds with many common forms of giving, yes.

The example of a community theater highlights another issue I have with effective altruism. It effectively encourages you to only donate to things you can make a quantifiable case for. And in a lot of situations, quantification fails. The arts have an immense value in developing philosophical, emotional, empathetic values. A theater may not show up in a balance sheet but it can have a massive effect. And it does conc…

> The arts have an immense value in developing philosophical, emotional, empathetic values.

Too bad these empathetic values privilege building an entertainment venue over saving lives or preventing suffering. /s

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

#128

Post by giraffe_lady »

yanderekko wrote: post #95
armchairhacker wrote: post #10

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…

>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 recruiting to contribute more charity and volunteering) I mean, the concern here is that coming off as an asshole can be self-defeating, not that these views are actually incorrect, right? Seems…

No there is also something bad about rejecting less quantifiable forms of charity as well. Movements grow out of communities and through solidarity and you build neither by mailing a check across the world and considering your obligation met.

I do think it's good to optimize money spent for these things much of the time but it's also just inhuman to have no place, or respect, for forms of charity that are based on, form and reinforce human connection.

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

#129

Post by dchftcs »

nl wrote: post #116
quantumwannabe wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founders of the Effective Altruism movement are mostly non-technical people. You can't blame their arrogance and failures on the "techbros". The people mentioned on the Effective Altruism Wikipedia page: Peter Singer: Professor of Bioethics (philosopher) Toby Ord: Philosopher. Philosophy PhD, Computer Science bachelors Hilary Greaves: Philosopher, and he double-majored in physics in undergrad William MacAskill: P…

"TechBros" doesn't mean "programmers". It broadly means something like "people who think tech will solve everything but don't think very deeply"

And yet Effective Altruism in itself is not technology focused. There's no evidence that list of people (many philosophers) think tech will solve everything.

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

#130

Post by heavyset_go »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #93
ketzo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think it was a very explicit dig. The founding idea is that giving $10,000 to save, y’know, four ailing dogs with bad livers or whatever, or a community theater, as opposed to many human lives, is fundamentally wrong. “If you’re gonna give, you should maximize the impact as measured in human life” is fundamentally at odds with many common forms of giving, yes.

The example of a community theater highlights another issue I have with effective altruism. It effectively encourages you to only donate to things you can make a quantifiable case for. And in a lot of situations, quantification fails. The arts have an immense value in developing philosophical, emotional, empathetic values. A theater may not show up in a balance sheet but it can have a massive effect. And it does conc…

> The example of a community theater highlights another issue I have with effective altruism. It effectively encourages you to only donate to things you can make a quantifiable case for.

Then you will be delighted/horrified to find out that the effective altruism community doesn't feel the need to make quantifiable justifications for how they spend their own donations, as evidenced by this $20k grant they gave someone to learn to ride a bike and think about AI[1].

That's about 3853 to 4090 mosquito nets' worth of donations, using GiveWell's numbers for the Against Malaria Foundation[2].

[1] https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g/...

[2] https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf

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