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The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

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

#561

Post by ben_w »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #525
tptacek wrote: post #137

My "Effective Altruism Is Not A Cult" t-shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by my shirt. I've dug into this stuff over the last couple days, because I had previously understood Effective Altruism to be something akin to like a pledge drive for Charity Navigator's best-reviewed charities or something, and it turns out it's nothing of the sort. In fact, if you read some of the commentary from EA insi…

You say "justify almost anything" but I've always been surprised by the lack of distribution of wealth as an answer to helping people. Maybe I've just missed it, but EA feels a lot like Communism if it was invented by Any Rand to me, so governments, democracy and regulation have always seemed notable by their absence.

I think you have missed quite a bit; EA also includes "80,000 hours", which explicitly suggests government as a great way to change the world.

https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/

Although I can't imagine this aged well at all (not that I've listened to it, I've been a crypto-skeptic since I first heard about BTC): https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/sam-bankman-fried-hi...

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

#562

Post by fknorangesite »

coldtea wrote: post #253
tptacek wrote: post #137

My "Effective Altruism Is Not A Cult" t-shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by my shirt. I've dug into this stuff over the last couple days, because I had previously understood Effective Altruism to be something akin to like a pledge drive for Charity Navigator's best-reviewed charities or something, and it turns out it's nothing of the sort. In fact, if you read some of the commentary from EA insi…

"Effective Altruism Is Not A Cult" sounds like what a cult would say :) Sure sounds like a cult in practice, especially in the whole context ( https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte... the other 6 parts of the series are great reading too).

> "Effective Altruism Is Not A Cult" sounds like what a cult would say

Yep, that's the joke.

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

#564

Post by tptacek »

naasking wrote: post #557
tptacek wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think people should be directing money to asteroid charities, no. It's their money, they can do what they want, but if their discipline demands that they do that, it's a bad discipline.

So to make sure I get this straight, if a plausible calculation suggested that we could see an extinction-level asteroid hurtling towards us in the next hundred years, you don't think that asteroid detection is worth funding via any means, like charities or governments?

See above.

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

#565

Post by NateEag »

yanderekko wrote: post #108
pr337h4m wrote: post #68

I've been convinced for sometime now that "effective altruism" (Lesswrong-ism? Yudkowskianism?) is the communism of the 21st century. Lots of parallels here beyond the obvious common thread of utilitarian collectivism: - Censorship: the concept of "infohazards" is super-popular https://nickbostrom.com/information-hazards.pdf https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/information-hazards - Social control + the creation of an 'othe…

>I've been convinced for sometime now that "effective altruism" (Lesswrong-ism? Yudkowskianism?) is the communism of the 21st century. I mean, maybe sorta.. the eschatology is far more interesting with EA, at least.

The EA eschatology is pretty much Christian eschatology, except they aren't at all sure their savior (a Friendly, Strong AI) will come. There's a good chance of just getting the Beast and the Harlot instead.

Hence the obsession with AI safety - Christians just have to work to bring Christ's kingdom to where they are. The EAs have to make sure nobody summons a vengeful demon overlord while they're slowly crafting their own all-loving, all-powerful digital deity.

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

#566

Post by 1ncorrect »

bradlys wrote: post #461
1ncorrect wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see billionaire individuals and organised charities as polar extremes of the same policy failure. Neither should exist, and when they do it should be as an ephemeral anomaly. Any charity which fails to prioritise putting itself out of business is functionally a grift. If society truly valued what charities do, their activities would be intrinsically valuable, and not require a special economic status to be conjured…

Or they are considered valuable but we have a captive market… Many people would like charities to become institutional features instead of charities but then there are other interests who are against such things because then “muh capital”

Charities, as they exist today, serve as a void into which corporations and governments can abdicate their respective responsibilities. Continuing to tolerate charities, at least in their current form, is complicity.

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

#567

Post by Akronymus »

dekhn wrote: post #554
Akronymus wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Without dang, the site would devolve, slowly at first, but steadily accelerating, until it reaches the lowest common denominator.

because people like me post things like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626587 I really doubt it. But it's probably inevitable that Hacker News will wither and go away (or at least stop being a place that attracts people like me). Eventually, somethign will replace HN like something replaced Slashdot (which had fantastic comments with not that much moderation, back in the day) and Usenet.

No, because new people wouldn't be informed about behaviour that breaks the site rules nearly as much, and thus continue breaking the site rules which makes it less attractive for the "old guard" to interact and more attractive for people who find posts that break the site rules appealing.

It would still stay decent for a few years, but after a decade or so it'd be unrecognizable IMO.

Of course, that prediction was sourced from out of thin air and unsubstantiated guesswork. Just writing my reasons of why I think so.

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

#568

Post by naasking »

pvg wrote: post #563
naasking wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, no one has proven this.

You gotta check in places other than LessWrong.

I'm actually well versed in virtue ethics, deontology and consequentialism and I don't read LessWrong. But if you have a reference where someone proved consequentualism was incoherent or invalid, please provide it, that would be quite earth shattering.

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

#569

Post by naasking »

tptacek wrote: post #564
naasking wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to make sure I get this straight, if a plausible calculation suggested that we could see an extinction-level asteroid hurtling towards us in the next hundred years, you don't think that asteroid detection is worth funding via any means, like charities or governments?

See above.

Blows my mind that anyone would actually accept such a conclusion, but you do you I guess. Seriously undermines your criticisms of EA, IMO.

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

#570

Post by headsoup »

medstrom wrote: post #414
headsoup wrote: post #396

In my view it's a movement for people making excuses for themselves. You don't need movements to be altruistic, you just do it or not. Of course they end up getting tied up in knots because they're trying to project altruism through continuously more complex justifications.

Yes, that would make the movement suspect. But if you'd read MacAskill or other sources, you'd know the original motivation was pretty much the opposite. The were aghast that lots of people currently donate to charities that ensure e.g. 4 livers to save 4 lives for the same amount of money that could've saved 1000 lives in another country. To reiterate, all these donors are already altruistic , and the original EAs w…

I get that, but I find that kind of thinking achieves nothing practical because it's endlessly scalable, and hence the tie in knots problem because it starts justifying "well I just need to extract another 500% profit because then I can really start helping." and as soon as an immoral justification is accepted it's very conflicting.

Obviously this is not a blanked outcome, but it seems to be where the wealthy SBF types wander into, especially if their wealth is not entirely 'clean' in the first place.

Reminds me of arguments like, say, the Sacklers' opioid crisis isn't all bad because they donated to charity, we should appreciate the good that came.

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