Effective altruism is not effective • Hacker News Board

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#131

Post by imtringued » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:35 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #48

vecplane wrote: post #4

This reads like a strawman perspective on the concept of 'effective altruism.' The 'effective' part in the term is doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the definition. It seems reasonable to focus on actually 'effective' actions with good outcomes, rather than comparatively ineffective virtual signalling or martyrdom. Becoming rich and then helping millions of people with your means is more impactful tha…

> Becoming rich and then helping millions of people with your means is more impactful than being poor and helping dozens. It's also more self-serving for the better part of it (as your focus is to become rich), and might never reach the second part (actually becoming rich and helping others). It's also bogus: not many can become rich, both for reasons for circumstance making from much harder to nigh impossible for bi…

>It's also bogus: not many can become rich, both for reasons for circumstance making from much harder to nigh impossible for billions, and also for purely logical reasons: wealth is relative, and if much bigger numbers of people were rich, it would get lost to inflation.

Yes, uninvested wealth is zero sum (cash and cash equivalents) and that is why we have inflation, but invested wealth can be positive sum.

If you use your uninvested wealth to invest into a poor country then you end up doing more good than bad.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#132

Post by kqr » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:40 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #127

Consider the case of returning the shopping cart. It is a simple thing you can do for the society. It doesn't inconvenience you in any significant way. And you might have philosophers telling you how you need to adopt a world view that being good requires of you to always return the shopping cart. Or you might just take a political decision to enforce returning the cart by keeping carts locked until you put a coin in…

Many stores in my area have used the coin-in-cart thing for decades -- and only recently stopped doing that. I have yet to ask them why, but I am curious.

Maybe maintaining the locking mechanism costs more than paying people to collect carts?

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#133

Post by lmm » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

morsch wrote: post #122

lmm wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By actually looking at how food gets produced.

So this is not a general property of EA, but only true for this field, as verified by a domain expert?

The same logic applies generally; the point is to apply the same things that have worked in every other field of human endeavour.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#134

Post by frashelaw » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #45

As a general principle, you're going to achieve at best, small, dystopia-blunting effects by effectively redistributing the resources of the not-rich. Gofundme healthcare will save a few people. Giving to panhandlers might keep them out of a killing freeze. What it won't do is make the dystopia go away. What you need to do that is politics.

Exactly. Ultimately these problems must be addressed on a greater societal level: by policy designed specifically to target them.

Individual donation will only ever be a band aid. The funds required to alleviate hunger, poverty, etc., will come from redistributing the wealth of the super rich.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#135

Post by cycomanic » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:43 AM UTC

benkuhn wrote: post #19

This article completely mischaracterizes the beliefs of most of the people quoted or referenced, then engages with those beliefs only via asserting the opposite without any supporting argument. I'm disappointed. For example: > The most charitable explanation of Singer’s dismissal of political action is that he is trying to sell being an altruist and he thinks a consumer -hero version is the one people are most likely…

I think you are mischaracterising the argument. His argument is that effective altruism can not eliminate poverty, it's inherent in the concept. You also dis not show that he is the one who mischaracterises the "believes" (maybe you mean arguments here?). I think he gave a reasonably accurate description of effective altruism, what in the description do you believe is wrong?

You have not actually engaged with the actual argument, you simply assert that change through political activism is not the "obvious most powerful tool we have". I think you need to back that up, I would say history at least tells us that the largest changes in wealth distributions have come through (often violent) political action.

Regarding the bednet argument, you are simply nitpicking on the numbers. The argument still stands at some point you end up in a position of diminishing returns, i. e. When everyone has a net giving nets is not helping anyone.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#136

Post by adamrezich » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:43 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #127

Consider the case of returning the shopping cart. It is a simple thing you can do for the society. It doesn't inconvenience you in any significant way. And you might have philosophers telling you how you need to adopt a world view that being good requires of you to always return the shopping cart. Or you might just take a political decision to enforce returning the cart by keeping carts locked until you put a coin in…

can't argue with your logic aside from (as someone who pushed carts for months at various Walmarts across South Dakota) the part where implementing coin-for-cart setups in thousands of retail locations across large geographical areas, where there previously weren't any, and customers weren't used to the situation, seems like a negligible corporate profit incentive, when you can always hire more cheap(ish)-labor cart-pushers (and/or enlist cashiers to push carts part-time as needed...)

I will say though that when I travelled to Sweden a few years ago, the coin-for-cart system was truly something to behold.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#137

Post by frashelaw » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:45 AM UTC

benlivengood wrote: post #16

A solution to 90% of the article is maximizing average expected utility which avoids several flaws with traditional utilitarianism. GiveDirectly is a ground-up solution to the long-term problem of poverty. Now I get very political, but I think it's also empirically true: global capitalism is the major force for extreme poverty in this century. Cheap labor is highly desirable and economically efficient for everyone ex…

Exactly. Capitalism is ultimately playing a key role in perpetuating poverty.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#138

Post by imtringued » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:45 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #93

coldtea wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Becoming rich and then helping millions of people with your means is more impactful than being poor and helping dozens. It's also more self-serving for the better part of it (as your focus is to become rich), and might never reach the second part (actually becoming rich and helping others). It's also bogus: not many can become rich, both for reasons for circumstance making from much harder to nigh impossible for bi…

Not to mention that becoming rich usually requires participaing in some kind of scheme that transfers money from vast number of people poorer than you into your pocket.

It's not about where it comes from, it's about what you do with it. If you put it to good use then it is perfectly fine.

The high corporate savings rate of the last decade tells us that most of that money is just sitting somewhere doing absolutely nothing.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#139

Post by duckerude » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #127

Consider the case of returning the shopping cart. It is a simple thing you can do for the society. It doesn't inconvenience you in any significant way. And you might have philosophers telling you how you need to adopt a world view that being good requires of you to always return the shopping cart. Or you might just take a political decision to enforce returning the cart by keeping carts locked until you put a coin in…

But the question remains: if you're a customer at a store that doesn't use a coin system, should you return your cart?

It might be a fake solution in the sense that someone else has the power to solve it in a better way, but does that mean you shouldn't do it?

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#140

Post by cycomanic » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:49 AM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #113

coldtea wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Becoming rich and then helping millions of people with your means is more impactful than being poor and helping dozens. It's also more self-serving for the better part of it (as your focus is to become rich), and might never reach the second part (actually becoming rich and helping others). It's also bogus: not many can become rich, both for reasons for circumstance making from much harder to nigh impossible for bi…

Who cares if it's more self serving as long as they do get the the second part? There is such a thing as win-win outcomes. "It's also bogus: not many can become rich" No need to become rich. You can have a big impact and save many lives on a dev salary. EA isn't premised on becoming a billionaire, as you seem to incorrectly believe.

But that assumes that 1. A significant portion of the people who want to get rich to help people actually get rich 2. Once they are rich they actually help 3. The process of getting rich doesn't make others poorer. (example does Bezos donating some portion of his wealth do better than him actually paying people more, or have the part owners of amazon?)

All these points are far from obviously true. In fact I can come up with many examples where they obviously are not.