Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In continued defense of effective altruism

astralcodexten.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 42 posts

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#21

Post by Joeboy »

photochemsyn wrote: post #9

The problem with billionaire philanthropy (which is what the term 'effective altruism' was intended to replace as part of a rebranding effort) is that it tends to be self-serving and opaque. E.g. we don't want secretive private 'do-gooder' foundations running global public health programs because they're always incentivized to deliver their funds to the private investment interests of the billionaires in charge, rath…

As per the other replies, you've seriously misunderstood some fundamentals about EA.

But aside from that:

> The better solution is to (1) increase tax rates on the wealthiest sectors of the economy by restoring 1960s-era tax brackets for income, corporate, and capital gains and (2) change how those funds are spent at the federal and state level, i.e. move away from funding foreign wars and towards fixing all the basic domestic problems.

Why are these mutually exclusive? Why can't I favour progressive taxation and better foreign / domestic policies, while also making donations to stop people dying of preventable diseases? Obviously EA people aren't all the same, but I'd say that was a fairly typical position among EAs, and I see nothing wrong with it.

If there is some slight way in which donating to malaria prevention as at odds with taxing the rich, is it really worth the large death toll associated with withdrawing funding from the former?

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#22

Post by Joeboy »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #6

Effective altruism is the result of not teaching STEM majors enough classics and philosophy. These tech nerds have "invented" utilitarianism, a philosophy that goes back thousands of years and has known downsides when taken to the extreme (i.e. ignoring personal liberties and the means of doing things). The ends don't always justify the means.

I would make the exact opposite case. "Weird EA" (the people worrying about paperclip generators and shrimp welfare) is a consequence of EA's roots in, and continued association with, academic philosophy.

The main, good part of EA is just about donating money in a way that does the most good possible. Which for most of us means organizations that stop people dying unnecessarily in poorer countries.

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#24

Post by Arnt »

paulolc wrote: post #23

Effective Altruism is a bad idea. Applying money in a way that does the most good possible is focusing/obsessing too much on one angle. A Local Maximum will be reached without mechanisms to get out of it.

You state without argument that effective altrusts optimise for one angle and disregard all other angles. Can you show some examples of this?

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#25

Post by UncleMeat »

Arnt wrote: post #19
UncleMeat wrote: post #7

I think that this is a bait and switch here. I'm not aware of any significant and serious criticism of the "give lots of money to malaria net organizations" approach to Effective Altruism. This also doesn't seem to be especially present in the article. I'm sure that you can find individual examples on twitter or whatever, but from my seat that seems to be a clear minority of the criticism. It is the version of Effect…

AIUI the EA argument would be "focusing on EA safety is among the most effective usee of our resources" and "flying to Mars is among the most effective uses of our resources". I can see how the former might be viewed as a cost-effective way to improve the world, even if I personally haven't even tried to consider the matter. The latter, not so much. Can you point to an effective altruist who argues that that's likely…

Right that's the argument. I just think that people who say that are using a wildly incorrect function for altruistic efficiency.

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#26

Post by chaseadam17 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #7

I think that this is a bait and switch here. I'm not aware of any significant and serious criticism of the "give lots of money to malaria net organizations" approach to Effective Altruism. This also doesn't seem to be especially present in the article. I'm sure that you can find individual examples on twitter or whatever, but from my seat that seems to be a clear minority of the criticism. It is the version of Effect…

Exactly. Nonprofits have a principal agent problem — they are funded by donors, not the people they serve. As a result, they are incentivized to find ways to give a non financial ROI to donors in order to keep the money coming (eg galas, name a building, focus on the donor’s pet project, etc) instead of serving the interests of the people they are supposed to help.

This dynamic — which is similar to politicians serving special interests rather than constituents — leads to lots of inefficient philanthropy.

EA tries to solve this with - better spreadsheets! Surely we can just math our way out of this. This is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t solve the root problem that donors, not beneficiaries, allocate capital and they are not in a great position to determine what is “effective” because it’s highly subjective.

So even though I think EA largely means well, these same problems of donor motives creep back into giving, despite better spreadsheets and a bunch of phds.

EA gets funding from tech VCs and all of a sudden Mars and AI are the central topics to giving. If hedge funds were the main donors, we’d probably be back focusing on microfinance. And in a sense, the false confidence and superiority that EA lends to donors, even though it does help on the margins creates more cover for the rare nefarious donors or nonprofit that use it to hide sinister ulterior motives.

The whole thing is similar to communism not working and the people in charge think, “we need better spreadsheets to allocate resources!” Rather than, “maybe we should give some of our power back to the people we’re ostensibly trying to help so they can pick what best serves them.”

The single thing missing from 99% of philanthropy conversations after all these years is STILL the voices of the people we’re all trying to help. We don’t need more phds or business tycoons deciding what’s best for the poorest people in the world. We just need to give them a little more money and power. But deep down, most of us don’t want to do that. We want to help in our way, on our terms, while controlling the purse strings and taking the credit.

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#27

Post by photochemsyn »

Joeboy wrote: post #21
photochemsyn wrote: post #9

The problem with billionaire philanthropy (which is what the term 'effective altruism' was intended to replace as part of a rebranding effort) is that it tends to be self-serving and opaque. E.g. we don't want secretive private 'do-gooder' foundations running global public health programs because they're always incentivized to deliver their funds to the private investment interests of the billionaires in charge, rath…

As per the other replies, you've seriously misunderstood some fundamentals about EA. But aside from that: > The better solution is to (1) increase tax rates on the wealthiest sectors of the economy by restoring 1960s-era tax brackets for income, corporate, and capital gains and (2) change how those funds are spent at the federal and state level, i.e. move away from funding foreign wars and towards fixing all the basi…

Malaria is a good example. It used to be endemic in the southeastern United States but was eradicated within a couple of decades - not by billionaire philanthropy, but by a robust government-managed public health effort:

> "Malaria affected 30 percent of the population in the region when the TVA was incorporated in 1933. The Public Health Service played a vital role in the research and control operations and by 1947, the disease was essentially eliminated."

https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.htm...

In the absence of basic local public health infrastructure and disease monitoring and response agencies, i.e. government services, malaria eradication is highly unlikely and all the mosquito nets in the world won't change that.

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#28

Post by UncleMeat »

chaseadam17 wrote: post #26
UncleMeat wrote: post #7

I think that this is a bait and switch here. I'm not aware of any significant and serious criticism of the "give lots of money to malaria net organizations" approach to Effective Altruism. This also doesn't seem to be especially present in the article. I'm sure that you can find individual examples on twitter or whatever, but from my seat that seems to be a clear minority of the criticism. It is the version of Effect…

Exactly. Nonprofits have a principal agent problem — they are funded by donors, not the people they serve. As a result, they are incentivized to find ways to give a non financial ROI to donors in order to keep the money coming (eg galas, name a building, focus on the donor’s pet project, etc) instead of serving the interests of the people they are supposed to help. This dynamic — which is similar to politicians servi…

Your last paragraph is so huge. There's a ton of "well we know the trick" stuff coming from donors and donor organizations that lead to just obviously broken approaches. One Child One Laptop is a great example.

This is one reason why I like direct financial gifts. People receiving the money know what they need the most.

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#29

Post by henryaj »

chaseadam17 wrote: post #26
UncleMeat wrote: post #7

I think that this is a bait and switch here. I'm not aware of any significant and serious criticism of the "give lots of money to malaria net organizations" approach to Effective Altruism. This also doesn't seem to be especially present in the article. I'm sure that you can find individual examples on twitter or whatever, but from my seat that seems to be a clear minority of the criticism. It is the version of Effect…

Exactly. Nonprofits have a principal agent problem — they are funded by donors, not the people they serve. As a result, they are incentivized to find ways to give a non financial ROI to donors in order to keep the money coming (eg galas, name a building, focus on the donor’s pet project, etc) instead of serving the interests of the people they are supposed to help. This dynamic — which is similar to politicians servi…

> The single thing missing from 99% of philanthropy conversations after all these years is STILL the voices of the people we’re all trying to help

Not so! Popular EA charity GiveDirectly does exactly what you're suggesting - giving money directly to people in extreme poverty through direct cash transfers.

Re: In continued defense of effective altruism

#30

Post by henryaj »

UncleMeat wrote: post #7

I think that this is a bait and switch here. I'm not aware of any significant and serious criticism of the "give lots of money to malaria net organizations" approach to Effective Altruism. This also doesn't seem to be especially present in the article. I'm sure that you can find individual examples on twitter or whatever, but from my seat that seems to be a clear minority of the criticism. It is the version of Effect…

> It is the version of Effective Altruism that has gone beyond that to "we need to focus on AI safety" and "we need to fly to mars" that people are calling bananas.

There's been more of a move towards longtermism (and existential risk) in the last couple of years, but this is still not the majority of what the Effective Altruism community is about. I also don't think flying to Mars has ever been on their radar.

Post reply on HN