9 ms·

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 com

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 than being poor and helping dozens. Both should be admired and encouraged, but one is clearly more 'effective' than the other.

jjj1232 5y ago
Both of your examples are individualistic, what about thousands or millions of poor people collectively fighting for something? The total impact of collective action is much greater than the sum of its individual parts.
- kiba 5y ago
  I don't think individualist effective altruism is incompatible with collective effort.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Sure, but it doesn't fit into the traditional framework of "effective altruism". Collective efforts-based altruism is just very different in so many ways.
    - tylerhou 5y ago
      Why not? A collective, efforts-based, altruistic organization needs funding. If such a organization could demonstrate that their efforts lead to good outcomes (improve happiness, save lives), then effective altruists would donate to them. A legitimate argument is that not everyone can make tons of money and donate because someone has to do the work. But there are plenty of "effective" organizations that are not yet overfunded.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        The thing is that money without involvement is poison to collective movements, besides a certain point. Money and involvement is much better. If all you want is to distribute, then sure. Collective movements aren't even the best at straight distribution, so someone trying to maximize the marginal utility of their dollar probably won't even donate. But collective action is generally not just about distribution, and moreso about fixing the structure of society to make distribution from rich donors unnecessary.
        tylerhou 5y ago
        I agree that both money and involvement is necessary. But in our current world, nonprofits have a lack of money, not lack of involvement. Nonprofits talk all the time about how difficult it is to fundraise. And all the charities GiveWell recommends still have a lack of capital. I think EA's would 100% want to fix the structure of society, if that method was resource efficient. If you believe that changing the structure of society is more resource efficient (in terms of time or money) than donating to AMF, GiveDirectly, or Deworm the World, please publish your analysis. How much {money, time, etc.} would it take to convince a government or people to adopt a certain policy? What would the benefits of that policy be? How much pushback would you get from opponents? What are the risks? If you can successfully make an argument that changing a policy would be more resource efficient than current efficient charities, that would convince EAs to direct more resources to politics.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  I don't see how altruism can be a distributed concept. It seems purely individual, an inside-out action. The idea of any collective, plural, outside-in action may be something, but not altruism.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    People help each other altruistically, and these networks of interchanged aid, called mutual aide, eventually allow for collective action.
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    Any time humans get together to solve a problem, band together to form a charity, coordinate over a social network to send out PPE, etc, they are not simply allocating optimally at the margins, they are aggregating resources and spending them toward a directed goal more efficiently. These are all examples of altruism. If you narrowly scope altruism to "marginal donation optimization", then yes, effective altruism is indeed a fairly trivially optimal way to allocate these resources.
    - smitty1e 5y ago
      I accept that your definition is a common one, but one of two attributes strike me as crucial for an unambiguously pure altruism: - total anonymity, or - ultimate sacrifice, as in the mother or warrior who lays it down for another. Anything less is open to the usual questions of motive. As with Dada, altruism doesn't survive intellectual evaluation.
      - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        > As with Dada, altruism doesn't survive intellectual evaluation. Sure and I'm not as interested in discussing the philosophical ideal of altruism. My interest in charitable work, as I suspect many interested in EA feel, stems from trying to do the greatest good with my limited allocation of resources, be that money, time, knowledge, manual labor, or otherwise. In that regard I'm unconcerned about the usual moral philosophical questions about motive and goodness.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  In therory you’re right. But in reality you’re not.
8note 5y ago
I'd assume you mean that being poor and helping dozens is more effective? The impact that you have when you are close to the person is far more likely to be a good one than if you're disconnected from them
- vecplane 5y ago
  A single poor person may be able to have a large impact on ~dozens of people, but even a small impact on millions of people is likely more valuable and 'altruistic' in terms of effect. But again, both paths should be encouraged. There will always be relatively few 'rich' people with the means to help millions.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Only if the impact is positive. It's already hard enough to make a positive impact on people you care about...
monktastic1 5y ago
But the "effective" part means more than just that. From their site: > It is a research field which uses high-quality evidence and careful reasoning to work out how to help others as much as possible. This assumes that reasoning and evidence are sufficient to determine what will be most effective. Compare this to the Buddhists, for example, who believe that the networks of causality are so complex and intricate that trying to make such determinations (at least, on any humanly reasonable scale) are doomed due to missing a lot of the picture as well as generally incorporating many faulty assumptions. In other words, what is ultimately most effective at ending suffering may not fit into the metaphysical framework that EA implicitly adopts.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  This is a common philosophical problem. EA fits in a philosophical framework broadly known as utilitarianism (which is also popular among rationalists, a group known to be fans of EA). Buddhism's ideas of moral philosophy often lie in a mixture of what is commonly known as Divine Will Ethics and Virtue Ethics. Utilitarianism is quite popular among modern STEM discourse, but there are moral alternatives out there that have been sufficiently explored. The idea that decision making may just be too complex to be effectively optimized is one of Utilitarianism's long-standing critiques (e.g., in the trolley problem, what happens if you save the 3 people over the 1 person, but one of those 3 people ends up becoming (or is) a dictator who orchestrates a genocide.)
  - esyir 5y ago
    The trolley problem situation seems pretty straightforward under utilitarianism if you add probability into it, I've never found the "what if one of the 3/4/5 could have been Hitler?" argument particularly convincing. The dictator assumption would apply to all humans born, and we as a species clearly don't punish birth sufficiently if the dictator risk was that heavily weighted. Axiom 1: Human life has value, saving a life is thus positive utility. Assumption 1: We know nothing of the people tied to the trolley -> All humans are probabilistically equal. Thus, the utilitarian presses the button and saves 3 at the cost of 1.
coldtea 5y ago
>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 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. So this effectively gives a pie-in-the-sky idea for what to become and when to help, to most people, as opposed to encouraging them to help dozens (or just a few) here and now.
- scotty79 5y ago
  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.
  - HDMI_Cable 5y ago
    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.
    - scotty79 5y ago
      Sure. Sometimes the scheme is introducing a new miracle tech to the masses of poor people and it benefits them. However some additional money beyond the cost of the tech is taken from them in return. Other times the scheme is just cheating people or restricting their access to hoarded limited resource.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      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.
CynicusRex 5y ago
I wonder how much of becoming rich is made possible only because people are exploited and thus remain poor.
luckylion 5y ago
> Becoming rich and then helping millions of people with your means is more impactful than being poor and helping dozens. Is it though? E.g. Bill Gates got insanely rich because his company engaged in anti-competitive behavior, thus causing lots of harm. You can easily make a point that often the damage that is caused to others if larger than the gain for the individual, so even if they spent 100% of their wealth, they couldn't make up for the damage they have caused. In that case, maybe it's better to look at medicine and the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. When a hedge fund analyst meddles with food supply in Ethiopia and makes a killing while a few thousand starve, but then builds a school to educate a hundred kids in Ethiopia... how much good has he done?

jjj1232 5y ago

Both of your examples are individualistic, what about thousands or millions of poor people collectively fighting for something? The total impact of collective action is much greater than the sum of its individual parts.

kiba 5y ago
I don't think individualist effective altruism is incompatible with collective effort.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Sure, but it doesn't fit into the traditional framework of "effective altruism". Collective efforts-based altruism is just very different in so many ways.
  - tylerhou 5y ago
    Why not? A collective, efforts-based, altruistic organization needs funding. If such a organization could demonstrate that their efforts lead to good outcomes (improve happiness, save lives), then effective altruists would donate to them. A legitimate argument is that not everyone can make tons of money and donate because someone has to do the work. But there are plenty of "effective" organizations that are not yet overfunded.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      The thing is that money without involvement is poison to collective movements, besides a certain point. Money and involvement is much better. If all you want is to distribute, then sure. Collective movements aren't even the best at straight distribution, so someone trying to maximize the marginal utility of their dollar probably won't even donate. But collective action is generally not just about distribution, and moreso about fixing the structure of society to make distribution from rich donors unnecessary.
      - tylerhou 5y ago
        I agree that both money and involvement is necessary. But in our current world, nonprofits have a lack of money, not lack of involvement. Nonprofits talk all the time about how difficult it is to fundraise. And all the charities GiveWell recommends still have a lack of capital. I think EA's would 100% want to fix the structure of society, if that method was resource efficient. If you believe that changing the structure of society is more resource efficient (in terms of time or money) than donating to AMF, GiveDirectly, or Deworm the World, please publish your analysis. How much {money, time, etc.} would it take to convince a government or people to adopt a certain policy? What would the benefits of that policy be? How much pushback would you get from opponents? What are the risks? If you can successfully make an argument that changing a policy would be more resource efficient than current efficient charities, that would convince EAs to direct more resources to politics.
smitty1e 5y ago
I don't see how altruism can be a distributed concept. It seems purely individual, an inside-out action. The idea of any collective, plural, outside-in action may be something, but not altruism.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  People help each other altruistically, and these networks of interchanged aid, called mutual aide, eventually allow for collective action.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  Any time humans get together to solve a problem, band together to form a charity, coordinate over a social network to send out PPE, etc, they are not simply allocating optimally at the margins, they are aggregating resources and spending them toward a directed goal more efficiently. These are all examples of altruism. If you narrowly scope altruism to "marginal donation optimization", then yes, effective altruism is indeed a fairly trivially optimal way to allocate these resources.
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    I accept that your definition is a common one, but one of two attributes strike me as crucial for an unambiguously pure altruism: - total anonymity, or - ultimate sacrifice, as in the mother or warrior who lays it down for another. Anything less is open to the usual questions of motive. As with Dada, altruism doesn't survive intellectual evaluation.
    - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
      > As with Dada, altruism doesn't survive intellectual evaluation. Sure and I'm not as interested in discussing the philosophical ideal of altruism. My interest in charitable work, as I suspect many interested in EA feel, stems from trying to do the greatest good with my limited allocation of resources, be that money, time, knowledge, manual labor, or otherwise. In that regard I'm unconcerned about the usual moral philosophical questions about motive and goodness.
nemo44x 5y ago
In therory you’re right. But in reality you’re not.

8note 5y ago

I'd assume you mean that being poor and helping dozens is more effective? The impact that you have when you are close to the person is far more likely to be a good one than if you're disconnected from them

vecplane 5y ago
A single poor person may be able to have a large impact on ~dozens of people, but even a small impact on millions of people is likely more valuable and 'altruistic' in terms of effect. But again, both paths should be encouraged. There will always be relatively few 'rich' people with the means to help millions.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Only if the impact is positive. It's already hard enough to make a positive impact on people you care about...

monktastic1 5y ago

But the "effective" part means more than just that. From their site: > It is a research field which uses high-quality evidence and careful reasoning to work out how to help others as much as possible. This assumes that reasoning and evidence are sufficient to determine what will be most effective. Compare this to the Buddhists, for example, who believe that the networks of causality are so complex and intricate that trying to make such determinations (at least, on any humanly reasonable scale) are doomed due to missing a lot of the picture as well as generally incorporating many faulty assumptions. In other words, what is ultimately most effective at ending suffering may not fit into the metaphysical framework that EA implicitly adopts.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
This is a common philosophical problem. EA fits in a philosophical framework broadly known as utilitarianism (which is also popular among rationalists, a group known to be fans of EA). Buddhism's ideas of moral philosophy often lie in a mixture of what is commonly known as Divine Will Ethics and Virtue Ethics. Utilitarianism is quite popular among modern STEM discourse, but there are moral alternatives out there that have been sufficiently explored. The idea that decision making may just be too complex to be effectively optimized is one of Utilitarianism's long-standing critiques (e.g., in the trolley problem, what happens if you save the 3 people over the 1 person, but one of those 3 people ends up becoming (or is) a dictator who orchestrates a genocide.)
- esyir 5y ago
  The trolley problem situation seems pretty straightforward under utilitarianism if you add probability into it, I've never found the "what if one of the 3/4/5 could have been Hitler?" argument particularly convincing. The dictator assumption would apply to all humans born, and we as a species clearly don't punish birth sufficiently if the dictator risk was that heavily weighted. Axiom 1: Human life has value, saving a life is thus positive utility. Assumption 1: We know nothing of the people tied to the trolley -> All humans are probabilistically equal. Thus, the utilitarian presses the button and saves 3 at the cost of 1.

coldtea 5y ago

>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 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. So this effectively gives a pie-in-the-sky idea for what to become and when to help, to most people, as opposed to encouraging them to help dozens (or just a few) here and now.

scotty79 5y ago
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.
- HDMI_Cable 5y ago
  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.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    Sure. Sometimes the scheme is introducing a new miracle tech to the masses of poor people and it benefits them. However some additional money beyond the cost of the tech is taken from them in return. Other times the scheme is just cheating people or restricting their access to hoarded limited resource.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    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.

CynicusRex 5y ago

I wonder how much of becoming rich is made possible only because people are exploited and thus remain poor.

luckylion 5y ago

> Becoming rich and then helping millions of people with your means is more impactful than being poor and helping dozens. Is it though? E.g. Bill Gates got insanely rich because his company engaged in anti-competitive behavior, thus causing lots of harm. You can easily make a point that often the damage that is caused to others if larger than the gain for the individual, so even if they spent 100% of their wealth, they couldn't make up for the damage they have caused. In that case, maybe it's better to look at medicine and the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. When a hedge fund analyst meddles with food supply in Ethiopia and makes a killing while a few thousand starve, but then builds a school to educate a hundred kids in Ethiopia... how much good has he done?