The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by dontreact » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #324

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…

> EA is pushing for this weird self-centered egotistical philanthropic avenue. That's literally the least efficient way to help anyone. What. The stereotypical EA person is a banker who makes $150k/year after tax and donates $100k/year to the against malaria foundation. As opposed to the lawyer who quits working for corporate and becomes a gardner, which seems to be what you're advocating. The former seems to do far…

This is starting to feel like Motte and Bailey fallacy to me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Either that or just confusion about what and/or who we are talking about.

EA is not a well defined set of concepts or ideas. I do know a lot of people who identify as EA and have argued for "earn-to-give" where the giving part is deferred far into the future.

I won't spur the confusion further but my own personal experience is that there are several people I have personally met who more closely match the parents description than the description you give.

I'm all for earn-to-give if you are doing the giving soon and to causes where the outcomes are easier to measure, like what you mentioned. This is very commendable.

Where EA-style thinking runs into trouble is where it places excess confidence in future predictions

either A) I will eventually donate this money B) This cause I'm donating to has no obvious impact now, but it will have immense impact in the future or C) Even though I can't see all the negative impacts my work is having, my prediction/inference is that the negative impacts will be smaller than the positive impacts of my altruism.

So I have nothing against the idea of trying to maximize good, I just think that I frequently see it used in conjunction with excessively high-confidence predictions or inferences.

In your case, I think it's important that the banker do some sort of accounting of whether he is having a negative impact on their current project/firm etc. There are bankers who have had a huge negative impact in the past and so this does need to be part of the accounting.

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

#422

Post by edanm » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #413

edanm wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the part of EA that triggers a lot of red flags for me. Making money, or rather making significant money, necessitates participation in a system of exploitation that is largely responsible for the ills the charitable donations are meant to alleviate in the first place. I mean, given that you think that I understand where you're coming from. But just note that many, many people would highly disagree with tha…

You missed the major point of being the exact capitalists that are the reason for charity to be so necessary. That’s white washing greed and self interest. Get to have a better life selfishly then donate the money to be morally better.

No I didn't miss the point. I disagree with it.

Looking at other countries that don't have capitalism, everyone is worse off. I don't think capitalism is the reason charity is necessary. I think the world starts default-bad for humans, by default we don't have anywhere close to the living we want, and over the years, many technological advanacements, including capitalism, have slowly made most humans far better off.

This is fairly clear in the historical record or in comparing different countries.

(At least to me. Most people seem to disagree with this, but I honestly think they're wrong.)

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

#423

Post by ithkuil » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:03 PM UTC

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #168

Admittedly the SBF debacle is the first time I’ve heard of EA, but I don’t think it’s surprising that it’s attracted such characters. Frankly it strikes me as just sketchy moral accounting, where you can be as greedy or exploitative as you want to be as long as you’re contributing to something that you can justify as having a higher “moral score”, but in the end you’re doing all the calculations and all the numbers a…

... and that's bad for the actual altruistic causes because?

Yes there are such people. I don't think they would be less greedy and exploitative if they didn't have a way to feel better about it. They would find another way to feel better, perhaps one that doesn't have the side effect of actually help out random people that would benefit from that help.

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

#424

Post by PebblesRox » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:04 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #371

OJFord wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem (and I think roughly the point being made) is that if you follow that logic through, then surely almost everyone here should have the vast majority of their possessions & wealth taken, to fund the equalising up-lifting of others. Charity and world aid is in a continual discussion & discovery of what we collectively think is 'good enough', helping people get to something that is perhaps 'not disaster', but…

'Possessions and wealth taken' and 'fund the equalizing up-lifting of others' co-occur, but that doesn't mean the latter is justifying the former. People who play the markets know they're taking a risk and willing to gamble on being smarter than their competition, they're consenting to have their money go to someone with better judgement than them and that's what justifies having their wealth taken. The winners of a…

Did SBF take the wealth using better judgement or did he take it using dishonesty and fraud?

My impression is that it's the dishonesty and theft that people have a problem with, not just being clever and outwitting people in the speculative gambling game.

And when those people get the impression that the EA movement is okay with getting money dishonestly as long as it's given it to a worthy cause, they take issue with EA.

Edit: Just thought of an analogy. Some charities do raffles, right? You can put money into the pot for a chance to win a prize, knowing that a proportion of all the money people put in goes to the charity.

But what if the charity sold a bunch of raffle tickets and then announced that they would not award a prize and all the money would go to the charity? Or what if it came out that the prize was rigged to go to someone affiliated with the charity? In this case I don't think you can say, "Well, those people chose to gamble so they consented to having their wealth taken."

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

#425

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #422

skinnymuch wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the major point of being the exact capitalists that are the reason for charity to be so necessary. That’s white washing greed and self interest. Get to have a better life selfishly then donate the money to be morally better.

No I didn't miss the point. I disagree with it. Looking at other countries that don't have capitalism, everyone is worse off. I don't think capitalism is the reason charity is necessary. I think the world starts default-bad for humans, by default we don't have anywhere close to the living we want, and over the years, many technological advanacements, including capitalism, have slowly made most humans far better off.…

> Looking at other countries that don't have capitalism, everyone is worse off.

Interesting that all I talked about was a system of exploitation and your mind immediately filled in 'capitalism'.

I think there are many countries that temper capitalism with socialist ideals and people are not worse off than the more unfettered variety practiced in the US.

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

#426

Post by edanm » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

polygamous_bat wrote: post #418

edanm wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is logic straight out of the 16th century Medici papacy of Leo X. Maybe it's some kind of horrible drug interaction with Rationalism, or maybe EA is fundamentally Rationalist? Either way: when your logic has established that you can obtain moral superiority by literally buying indulgences, it has officially proven too much, I think you're missing the point of that paragraph, or at least misrepresenting it here…

> The underlying logic of someone who made and gave away billions being overall ahead of other people morally is sound. Do you hear yourself, not even asking how they "made" their billions? This is what "EA is indulgence for billionaires" people are talking about exactly. If you make your billions unethically, no amount of charity will make you a good person.

> If you make your billions unethically, no amount of charity will make you a good person.

I completely agree! I thought the context of the rest of my post made it clear that I assume they made it in an ethical way, but I guess it wasn't clear? I mean, if someone says they gave away billions to charity, my first question isn't immediately "but how did you make billions?". I just assume it's legit, because in most cases it's legit. And I thought I was pretty clear above that in cases it isn't legit, then that's not morally ok.

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

#427

Post by edanm » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:06 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #426

polygamous_bat wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The underlying logic of someone who made and gave away billions being overall ahead of other people morally is sound. Do you hear yourself, not even asking how they "made" their billions? This is what "EA is indulgence for billionaires" people are talking about exactly. If you make your billions unethically, no amount of charity will make you a good person.

> If you make your billions unethically, no amount of charity will make you a good person. I completely agree! I thought the context of the rest of my post made it clear that I assume they made it in an ethical way, but I guess it wasn't clear? I mean, if someone says they gave away billions to charity, my first question isn't immediately "but how did you make billions?". I just assume it's legit, because in most cas…

I also right after said that this doesn't allow them to then go do something bad. I mean this in both directions, obviously!

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

#428

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:09 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #33

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?

Like someone else said and articles have said. Socialism is the most effective altruism. This doesn’t allow you to become worth $100M+ with the reasoning being you’ll be an effective altruist though. The upper EA people are suspect. As well as the thinking that making more money is better then a great society helping job. Not that most EA people are like this.

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

#429

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

dchftcs wrote: post #25

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…

Your reaction is a bit absolutist. The basic premise is that if you're capable of making 500k a year in the developed world then going to Africa to volunteer to build houses is not as effective as just donating your money to charities that send people to help, or hire people yourself. What it evolved into is a bit controversial, overall they seem to be a bunch of kids who don't know what to do with the power and mone…

They aren’t kids any more

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

#430

Post by concordDance » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #303

llamaimperative wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not weird at all. When (probably when , not if ) we create it, we will quickly be interacting with an entity with a similar power imbalance as we have to ants. No one knows exactly what the outcome will be, even less so what to do about it, but surely the kool-aid is watching accelerating progress toward this state and believing either it won’t happen or it won’t be interesting/surprising. Disclaimer: I don’t think t…

> Not weird at all. When (probably when, not if) we create it, we will quickly be interacting with an entity with a similar power imbalance as we have to ants. That's the sci-fi idea, which handwaves away several very big assumptions and improbabilities, such as that intelligence can be grown to absurd levels (or even just majorly) just by adding hardware to allow for it, that intelligence can just be expanded by its…

Intelligence lets a guy with a moustache convince millions of people to invade Poland and kill all the Jews. Its not his liver or his kidneys, its his brain. Feel free to call this type of thing "charisma" but for the purposes of thinking about AI it still comes from the but doing the thinking. And there's actually a pretty good correlation between being good at the various types of mental things, including charisma and IQ (e.g. presidents tend to be over iq 120), because the brain is a very complex organ with many ways it can get screwed up.

Would an AI necessarily be super charismatic initially? Maybe not, but don't assume greater intelligence won't lead to greater charisma.

(Yes, I know it wasn't just Hitler doing the convincing, but again, that distinction isn't important here as making a message come from many different people is trivial marketing 201/propaganda 101 in the 21st century)