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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?

#141

Post by metta2uall »

I would consider "Effective Altruism" to be a fairly broad abstract attitude of trying to effectively help living beings (oneself & others), as guided by one's own opinions. Self-examination, critical thinking & debate are core values, and as far as I can tell continue to be so.

It's unfortunate that it's being defined by the rightly controversial opinions of famous people..

To balance this article, consider checking out one of the main EA websites https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-e...

For example it indicates that longtermism is "a school of thinking within effective altruism". The popularity of such ideas will vary with time and they will be further refined with ongoing thinking & healthy debate. I for one fail to understand why it's important to maximise the number of future lives, which don't even exist - it seems very risky & unsustainable.

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

#142

Post by davidgay »

yanderekko wrote: post #100
MichaelCollins wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with EA and other utilitarian systems of thought is two-fold. Firstly, you can't predict the future so really you're working off your biases. Secondly, unfettered by principles other than the end justifying the means, you can easily turn those aforementioned biases into justifications for committing horrible acts. Mass murder, or evidently, theft on a massive scale. For instance: "The technological revolu…

>Firstly, you can't predict the future so really you're working off your biases. Um, are you saying that this implies that people should just throw up their hands and donate to whatever causes since who knows? Surely not. Once we acknowledge that these questions can be tackled empirically, that's what EA tries to do. Is there room for bias in this process? Absolutely. Does that justify embracing some sort of epistemi…

> > Firstly, you can't predict the future so really you're working off your biases.

> Um, are you saying that this implies that people should just throw up their hands and donate to whatever causes since who knows?

No, it implies that you shouldn't lecture others that you have the one true answer as to the best path forwards. You are free to (and in fact should) use your best judgment in your own personal choices, just don't confuse that with absolute truth.

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

#143

Post by codefreeordie »

dang wrote: post #9
codefreeordie wrote: post #3

"effective altruism" was never either effective nor altruistic. If people are finally working that out, good for them.

Ok, but please don't post shallow dismissals to Hacker News. We're hoping for something more than putdowns and supercilious swipes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. You've unfortunately been posting a bunch of unsubstantive/baity comments lately. Can you please not? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

No post body was provided.

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #85
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it is not a "fine" concept. It is just utilitarianism with modern marketing and pure utilitarianism has problems. See one example below where utilitarianism's suggestion goes against what almost everyone considers ethical: You can take 10 healthy organs from one person without any social connections and use the organs to save 10 terminal patients who would otherwise die. EA effectively sanctions robbing a mill…

EA doesn't do that - it's a much smaller concept than utilitarianism. (Which also wouldn't always support that conclusion.)

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by nl »

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…

I think that longtermism (mentioned in the article) is bad though, both as a concept and in practice.

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

#146

Post by cscurmudgeon »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #85
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it is not a "fine" concept. It is just utilitarianism with modern marketing and pure utilitarianism has problems. See one example below where utilitarianism's suggestion goes against what almost everyone considers ethical: You can take 10 healthy organs from one person without any social connections and use the organs to save 10 terminal patients who would otherwise die. EA effectively sanctions robbing a mill…

EA doesn't do that - it's a much smaller concept than utilitarianism. (Which also wouldn't always support that conclusion.)

> Which also wouldn't always support that conclusion

This is a well known issue:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

https://blog.apaonline.org/2021/03/29/is-effective-altruism-...

> As such, Effective Altruism is inherently Utilitarian in character, even if the views are themselves distinct. Criticisms of Effective Altruism on the basis of critiques to Utilitarianism are not only expected, but fair.

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

#147

Post by Aunche »

imgabe wrote: post #76
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 idea that you can precisely plan out the exact optimal path is arrogant and fundamentally wrong. What if the friendships made at a community theater help a troubled kid through a rough patch and instead of committing suicide they go on to cure cancer? Not funding the theater would have been very sub-optimal. Even without far-fetched hypotheticals what’s the point of saving everyone’s life if they’re just going to…

Several orders of magnitude more children would be saved from mosquito nets than community theater, and each of them has a chance to find a cure to cancer. Then there's a couple orders of magnitude of children who wouldn't die, but whose lives would have otherwise been significantly disrupted by malaria, hookworm or vitamin A deficiency. All these children could go on to find cures to cancer or at the very least live more meaningful lives.

Obviously, this isn't to say we should donate any less to community theaters, though I think that's a different type of donation. That is partially altruistic, but on some level it fulfills the same satisfaction as a purchase.

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

#148

Post by pavlov »

JamesBarney wrote: post #117
hardwaregeek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let me preface this with I know this is a mugging, I think community theater is great, and I don't think it's good to divert all societal resources to nets in Africa. But I just don't think it's as effective, and I don't think most people agree. If the only available labor was teenagers, rebuilding the community theater meant hiring them, and you knew that statistically there was a risk some might die from heat strok…

This game can go on endlessly. What if hiring the teenagers mean they’re getting a salary, can help their families, and without the job they’d run off into the jungle to join the warlord who runs a murder cult army? Turns out the community theatre prevented a massacre and one of the kids wins the Nobel Prize for her plays in fifty years.

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

#149

Post by yanderekko »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #128
yanderekko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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, f…

>No there is also something bad about rejecting less quantifiable forms of charity as well.

I don't think EA argues for this. I guess it depends on what you mean by "less quantifiable."

>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.

Describing this as "inhuman" is pretty extreme. In any case I think if you acknowledge that you're indulging in various non-charitable preferences through your donations I don't think EA would offer a serious critique beyond pointing out that you could be doing better. I think a major goal of EA though is to get people to truly wrangle with their biases here. These organizings are pragmatic - they're not trying to chide us into being moral saints, but just "giving what we can" - a popular EA slogan.

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

#150

Post by nl »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #140
itsdrewmiller wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EA doesn't do that - it's a much smaller concept than utilitarianism. (Which also wouldn't always support that conclusion.)

But it has very noticeably begun falling into the same traps long discovered and recognized by utilitarianism. EA now has a significant contingent that is most focused on very unlikely far future outcomes because they would be incredibly bad for an unimaginably vast number of people if they did occur eg unbounded utility. That's pascal's mugging! The movement is based on the same ideas and values and it's running int…

> EA now has a significant contingent that is most focused on very unlikely far future outcomes because they would be incredibly bad for an unimaginably vast number of people if they did occur eg unbounded utility. That's pascal's mugging!

Indeed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_mugging

(Although the term itself comes from the EA community)

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