Effective altruism is not effective • Hacker News Board

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#141

Post by imtringued » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:52 AM UTC

morsch wrote: post #105

lmm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EA claims that doing more of the thing that causes these huge problems like hunger and homelessness will actually somehow cause less of it. And if you think I'm being reductive, fine, but I would ask that you point out what I'm reducing and why it shouldn't have been. How is it "the thing", unless "the thing" is supposed to be, what, people using common sense? And how is it "the thing that causes these problems" wh…

The argument of EA is closer to: doing more of the things that currently feed 95% of the world is the way to feed 100%. How do you know it's not doing more of the things that currently leave 5% without food?

>The argument of EA is closer to: doing more of the things that currently feed 95% of the world is the way to feed 100%.

That is purely a political choice. Just grow the food supply faster than the population. Most developed countries have solved this on the population side. If every EU country had 0.5 - 1 billion people all of them would run into food problems.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#142

Post by cycomanic » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:53 AM UTC

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #108

scotty79 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not necessarily, most wealth isn’t zero-sum. Everyone benefits from a new miracle drug, or a new industrial technique, even those who become rich from it, and those who don’t. The modern world compared 1700 is a great example on joe wealth can (but doesn’t always, see Saudi Arabia) benefit all.

The miracle drug is a good example. Sure everyone benefits if it is not expensive. Take the Covid vaccines for example, there are many locations (e.g. In India) that could produce vaccines, however the companies (and the Western countries) do not want to open up the patents, even though we would all (even us in the 1st world) benefit, because eliminating covid as quick as possible would reduce the chance of mutations.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#143

Post by solveit » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #135

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 act…

No, the burden of proof lies on the person claiming that something is "obvious".

And nitpicking the numbers is incredibly important if said nitpick happens to span orders of magnitude.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#144

Post by imtringued » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:59 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #126

Lewton wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you see anything about APR? Kiva claims they're zero interest loans

It's some nonsense method of calculating. It's somewhere on the site. Kiva provides zero-interest loans to µfinance partners, they charge interest to the actual guy who wants to buy a cow, then return the principal to Kiva who gives you back the money. So yeah, Kiva provides zero-interest loans, but the cow guy getting the money is paying like 20%-80% APR. I think it was their partner Credituyo that was patently ridi…

There are two reasons why the loans are 80% APR, either because lots of them fail to repay (which goes against the 96% repayment rate) or because the recipients of the loan generate enough value to justify paying 80% APR. (unlikely because that would have attracted a colossal amount of investors and reduced yields back to the single digits that are available to other markets).

Honestly, looking at it, it would be better if they just obtained the funding themselves by borrowing it at low interest rates and you just pay a subscription fee to cover the interest and administrative costs.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#145

Post by fighterpilot » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 7:01 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #140

fighterpilot wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Regarding (1) - Becoming rich isn't part of the premise of EA. Getting a $100k job is often sufficient to have extra cash that can save real lives.

Regarding (2) - There are examples of successful EA in action. See the FTX founder.

Regarding (3) - Getting rich can't make people poorer (on net) unless you're exploiting negative externalities, which we would both agree need to be addressed by government. It can transfer wealth from A to B (e.g., by deprecating one industry and replacing it with another), for sure, but I don't see that as automatically bad.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#146

Post by solveit » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 7:01 AM UTC

Uehreka wrote: post #70

pcstl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's like, three orders off from the kinds of problems that actually happen when you try to do political activism I think this just goes to show how people who live in places with stable political institutions take them for granted and don't value what they have. That you believe that political agitators who aim to destabilize institutions will face no problem greater than issues with fundraising or movement-build…

So, political activism doesn't necessarily mean ending capitalism and demolishing the system. Like, granted, when you play with matches you risk getting burned. But a lot of effective political activism is more about getting petition signatures and pressuring the state legislature to pass an ordinance banning factories from pumping heavy metals into the water table. Stuff that makes a difference, but is monumentally…

And EA isn't against this kind of thing, but political activism often tends not to be low-hanging because people are very invested in political activism. If you can set up an organization that can consistently identify low-hanging, high-impact activism, then EA will be all for it.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#147

Post by solveit » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 7:05 AM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #53

Uehreka wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in that this aspect of EA has sometimes rubbed me the wrong way. I do see how EA writers get there though: Statistically, it's very unlikely that you will be the first person to hear about a particular initiative or cause. Given that a lot of EA people follow similar media (some of which is focused specifically on evaluating the best up-and-coming EA opportunities), the moment that an organization ge…

> I think part of the reason the writing is oriented this way, is an expectation that there will always be a glut of hardcore volunteers who will call and volunteer even if you tell them not to. Those people don't need convincing, but the people who do need convincing are the ones who might drop out if they find they aren't going to be on the front lines. The thing is, at least based on my own experience in volunteer…

> I don't have the data to back this up

Then you're not going to be very convincing. Especially when you're being compared to the EAs.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#148

Post by austhrow743 » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 7:14 AM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #94

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #49

I think the biggest problem with the Effective Altruism movement is that it has become too tied up with people who like to debate things, especially topics like AI Risk. Optimizing the effectiveness of one's charitable donations is a reasonable goal. Doing basic research to choose efficient and effective charities makes sense. However, there are large parts of the EA community that have gone off the deep end of debat…

If you are unclear between AMF (bed nets) and AI Risk, and you find AI Risk dubious, then donate to AMF. It sounds like you're complaining that your choices have been pared down to two, and you don't like one of them.

Reads to me like they've been consuming a lot of the output of other peoples recreation, despite not wanting to, and are now complaining about those people having left it somewhere where they could read it.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#149

Post by matkoniecz » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 7:24 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #128

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…

> but does not himself provide an argument for it, just an assertion that political change is "the most obvious and powerful tool we have." (I think that's far from obvious!) Argentina, Venezuela and Zimbabwe are basically nations that destroyed themselves through bad political reforms. If there had been a way to prevent those reforms you could have prevented millions of people from slipping into poverty and needing…

"the most obvious and powerful tool we have." is not the same "if it worked then it would be useful in some cases".

Author makes extremely strongly claim and expects to believe it without any support.

Re: Effective altruism is not effective

#150

Post by scotty79 » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 7:31 AM UTC

duckerude wrote: post #139

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?

If you return the cart, then on one hand you do what's best for the individuals that might have been inconvenienced by your not returning of that cart.

But at the same time you enable the decision makers to keep avoiding introducing the policy that will make the carts be always returned.

So what should you do?

Be the person that is kind to individuals and labeled as "good" by policy makers that are exploiting your morals to keep sub-optimal solution that is cheaper for them?

Or not return it and be the asshole, but make it a little bit more obvious that the current solution isn't really working?

Good and evil are not one number on the axis. Good and evil are separate concepts, and both are multidimensional.