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Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

economist.com

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Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#111

Post by 438798275 »

gowld wrote: post #102
buvanshak wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot make much sense of your comment. But let me expand on my original comment and tell this. The only charitable work that I consider genuine is the one that you does not know about. When you read about the work of a person 'x' of a foundation in papers/media, their work cease to be charity. It is just that the person is gaining something, in return, other than "feeling good" you mention. Superficially, or in ot…

If the only genuine charity is invisible, how can we maintain a society with a culture of genuine charity? If charity is secret, it's too easy to simply not do charity, since there are no consequences, neither positive nor negative reinforcement. I have my suspicions about the PR motives of https://givingpledge.org/ , but ultimately, doing good in exchange for positive PR (a form of "buying advertising") is a deal I'…

> If the only genuine charity is invisible, how can we maintain a society with a culture of genuine charity?

Why would you want to maintain a society that extols charity, 'genuine' or not? Wouldn't you rather live in a society that doesn't have a need to 'do good' as a cleanup procedure for the 'bad done.'

Before you say that's a strawman argument, consider that charity exists because things that should be considered human rights are often tossed aside as impractical to implement due to the fundamental poverty of the governance structure.

Here's some interesting tables of numbers of 'charitable giving' that will reveal your assumptions and biases:

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm

https://cdn.vcapps.org/sites/default/files/upload/VCEP%20-%2...

https://www.fidelitycharitable.org/docs/Fidelity-Charitable-...

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#112

Post by mkirklions »

jlebar wrote: post #99
monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

However, to consider artificial intelligence to be a potential global catastrophe at all, let alone the single one requiring extra funding, is mostly unfounded. We currently can barely even define what the actual risk is, let alone how to mitigate it. Although I happen agree with you personally, I don't think we should commit the fallacy of assuming that because their position seems absurd to us that it comes from a…

>I don't think we should commit the fallacy of assuming that because their position seems absurd to us that it comes from a place of bias or ignorance.

I had a really smart person talk about AI and how to deal with it. His conclusion was a gigantic let down. He was out of his element, hes an economist, but his conclusion was-

Either AI is going to be peaceful, or its going to kill us and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Maybe most civilizations end like this, but why not look for third options?

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#113

Post by norepicycle »

An entertaining, particularly biting, and horribly shortcoming-riddled statement of the case against EA that nevertheless captures a common set of views:

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_elitist_philanthropy_of_...

(This is the "defective altruism" article.)

Is there a name for a set of views that are correlated with each other in prevalence, in the sense that they occur together more often than could be explained by chance alone? It's similar to the idea of a syndrome in medicine: "opinion syndrome", perhaps?

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#114

Post by nordsieck »

mkirklions wrote: post #112
jlebar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, to consider artificial intelligence to be a potential global catastrophe at all, let alone the single one requiring extra funding, is mostly unfounded. We currently can barely even define what the actual risk is, let alone how to mitigate it. Although I happen agree with you personally, I don't think we should commit the fallacy of assuming that because their position seems absurd to us that it comes from a…

>I don't think we should commit the fallacy of assuming that because their position seems absurd to us that it comes from a place of bias or ignorance. I had a really smart person talk about AI and how to deal with it. His conclusion was a gigantic let down. He was out of his element, hes an economist, but his conclusion was- Either AI is going to be peaceful, or its going to kill us and there is nothing we can do to…

> Either AI is going to be peaceful, or its going to kill us and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Have you heard of the AI Box experiments?

http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/

The problem of containing a hostile AI does not seem to be particularly tractable to me.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#115

Post by ajkjk »

wadfginoi wrote: post #68
castlecrasher2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you still get far less moral credit for donating there than donating somewhere more effective. I take issue with this attitude. How is this anything but degrading and shaming those who give their time and money to a noble cause? I frankly don't see how your opinion on efficacy matters, it appears you want to make people feel bad for doing good-but-not-good-enough things.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is mostly useless. People have a moral obligation to set aside their feelings in order to do the right thing. Giving to the Make-A-Wish Foundation is motivated mostly by a desire to feel good. If you want me to stop saying that, prove me wrong. Calling me mean isn't an argument. If what I say makes people feel bad, the solution isn't to start lying to make them feel better.

It's useless according to your metric of usefulness, not according to someone else's.

I think it is 100% a valid moral stance to care about your community or your nation, and not feel any moral obligation to help people outside of that. The world is too big and chaotic for every human to feel the same degree of moral obligation for every other human.

Moreover, maybe Make-A-Wish's main positive outcome is not that one kid gets a wish, but that everyone gets to 'live in a society where Make-A-Wish exists', thus kindling optimism and community and reminding us that the world is still kind in big ways. It is not hard to see that the net result on one's society of Make-a-Wish could, for some systems of evaluating morality of actions, be far higher than well-intentioned throwing money at some faraway place where you would never see any result, either if you care much more about local effects, or if you think signaling effects can be comparable in magnitude to actual 'good'.

Anyway, the crux of it is that your way of accounting for the morality of actions is actually pretty particular and you're demanding everyone else follow it and then shaming them if they don't. Not your morality, your system of accounting, which is far less 'obviously' right.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#116

Post by jaggederest »

ogennadi wrote: post #57
monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

I used to feel similarly until I realized that the EA movement isn't a hierarchical organization: it's just a bunch of totally separate orgs who have a common philosophy about how to do good in the world. Sure, OpenPhil funds AI research. But Givewell (who, last I checked, share the same office) has in their Top Charities list, only those that work in poor countries https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities [2…

Agreed. I've loosely held an EA-like philosophy for about a decade and I think that OpenPhil orientation towards AI is pretty disappointing.

I account for my time in terms of things like number of people saved from blindness or death due to malaria, and I definitely do not count future simulated persons as worthy of any of the same concern as actual humans who exist today.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#117

Post by morgante »

monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

Effective Altruism is not a single monolithic organization and I think you really go too far to assume all/most advocates think AI research is more important than feeding the homeless.

Personally, I wholeheartedly subscribe to effective altruism and also don't think AI research is a good use of my funds. All of my donations go to malaria relief.

Effective altruism is about principles, not particular causes.

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#118

Post by [deleted] »

ogennadi wrote: post #57
monadgonad wrote: post #45

I think the Effective Altruism movement really belies its own values and cause with the fact that one of its own funds is for supporting: > organizations that work on improving long-term outcomes for humanity. Grants will likely go to organizations that seek to reduce global catastrophic risks, especially those relating to advanced artificial intelligence. [1] Yes, an argument can be made that it's important to fund…

I used to feel similarly until I realized that the EA movement isn't a hierarchical organization: it's just a bunch of totally separate orgs who have a common philosophy about how to do good in the world. Sure, OpenPhil funds AI research. But Givewell (who, last I checked, share the same office) has in their Top Charities list, only those that work in poor countries https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities [2…

[deleted]

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#119

Post by balfirevic »

norepicycle wrote: post #113

An entertaining, particularly biting, and horribly shortcoming-riddled statement of the case against EA that nevertheless captures a common set of views: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_elitist_philanthropy_of_... (This is the "defective altruism" article.) Is there a name for a set of views that are correlated with each other in prevalence, in the sense that they occur together more often than could be explained…

Memeplex maybe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memeplex

Re: Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?

#120

Post by kinsomo »

wadfginoi wrote: post #68
castlecrasher2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you still get far less moral credit for donating there than donating somewhere more effective. I take issue with this attitude. How is this anything but degrading and shaming those who give their time and money to a noble cause? I frankly don't see how your opinion on efficacy matters, it appears you want to make people feel bad for doing good-but-not-good-enough things.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is mostly useless. People have a moral obligation to set aside their feelings in order to do the right thing. Giving to the Make-A-Wish Foundation is motivated mostly by a desire to feel good. If you want me to stop saying that, prove me wrong. Calling me mean isn't an argument. If what I say makes people feel bad, the solution isn't to start lying to make them feel better.

> The Make-A-Wish Foundation is mostly useless. People have a moral obligation to set aside their feelings in order to do the right thing. Giving to the Make-A-Wish Foundation is motivated mostly by a desire to feel good.

> If you want me to stop saying that, prove me wrong. Calling me mean isn't an argument. If what I say makes people feel bad, the solution isn't to start lying to make them feel better.

People aren't robots, and there's no moral obligation for them to act like they are.

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