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Both of your examples are individualistic, what about thousands or millions of poor people collectively fighting for something? The total impact of collective
by 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 agoI don't think individualist effective altruism is incompatible with collective effort.
- sudosysgen 5y agoSure, 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 agoWhy 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 agoThe 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 agoI 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 agoI 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 agoPeople help each other altruistically, and these networks of interchanged aid, called mutual aide, eventually allow for collective action.
- Karrot_Kream 5y agoAny 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 agoI 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 agoIn therory you’re right. But in reality you’re not.