7 ms·

‘Effective Altruism’ Is Neither

36 points by resalisbury 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago
Sometimes "longtermism" seems like a conspiracy to introduce a large number of fake issues (superhuman A.I.) to distract people away from action on climate change.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  I can supply a specific, real-world example of this in action. There was a "green business" conference at our University town, with many MBA and entrepreneurial sort of people attending -- an auditorium with panel discussion, maybe about 300 persons with six or eight speakers from large companies active in the area. A person from PG&E (the power company here) a calm and well-spoken woman executive, maybe from a sports background? spoke multiple times about PG&E plans.. every. single. item. discussed by this PG&E exec was at a minimum of ten years away.. many of the replies, it was more years.. so many ways of saying "we are moving towards this" ... and "integrating these systems" .. and "new regulations in progress now" .. etc within six months, the explosion and fire in San Bruno, California [0] and subsequent investigation, showed that PG&E had falsified inspection documents to avoid detecting existing pipeline maintenance, because of course it costs money to fix pipelines. The executive was repeatedly asked about what to do now, and repeatedly every answer was at least ten years away for "reasons". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Though in this case, it's the WSJ op-ed section, world-famous climate change deniers, on the attack, so presumably they'd love it if that was true.
resalisbury 4y ago
This is not a well articulated or researched opinion piece, but it is interesting to see what some individuals initial reaction to Effective Altruism is. And in this case it is obviously negative.
nicoburns 4y ago
I love the idea behind effective altruism, and it definitely has some merit. But unfortunately many of it's proponents are hopelessly naive about what is actually effective, often falling prey to the trap of believing only what is measurable has value, and that is possible to measure the effect of actions taken in complex situations via mere statistical analysis. This does gradually seem to be improving over time so I have hope for the future, but for now it's a movement worth engaging with, but with a massive pinch of salt rather than swallowing their claims wholesale.
ChadNauseam 4y ago
> And Mr. Bankman-Fried’s various entities, along with Cari Tuna and others, have put up about $19 million for a future California ballot measure, the California Pandemic Early Detection and Prevention Act, which would add a 0.75% tax on incomes over $5 million to raise up to $15 billion over 10 years. Catch that? Someone else pays. Effective, but not exactly selfless. > It’s the classic progressive playbook: Raise taxes to fund their pet projects but not yours or mine. I don’t care if altruists spend their own money trying to prevent future risks from robot invasions or green nanotech goo, but they should stop asking American taxpayers to waste money on their quirky concerns. I hoped that after Covid, pandemic preparedness would stop being seen as a "quirky concern", but it seems like we are incapable of learning from our mistakes.
- saargrin 4y ago
  while i'm onboard for funding pandemic early detection,i am not onboard with spending donations to lobby/politically maneuver the legislature to tax some people via some under the table tax code we should have mature discussions about what we should pay for with our taxes, and i think majority of people would support a rational above board tax policy to prevent COVID type disasters the practical numbers of tax should be left to legislature AFTER a public consensus is reached
dharmaturtle 4y ago
I donate to GiveWell, so I narrowed in on this section: > Yes, they direct money toward malaria nets and treatments for parasitic worms, but they also supply supplements for vitamin A deficiency, though genetically modified “golden” rice already provides vitamin A more effectively. Hmmm, seems like a move backward. GiveWell also suggests direct cash transfers to solve extreme poverty, similar to universal basic income. A thread on golden rice on the EA forum: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AF8hvNXFqhZsDmrTc/should-gmos-e-g-golden-rice-be-a-cause-area https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AF8hvNXFqhZsDmrTc/... It's banned in many countries so it seems like supplements are the most "effective" way forwards. If his best criticism of direct cash transfers is that it's similar to UBI, I'm okay with that.
xorfish 4y ago
> "I don't like these people and these people support EA, so EA is bad. Also I think trickle down economics is an accurate model." This would have been a much shorter article without losing substance.
goethes_kind 4y ago
A bit of a tangential criticism: but does literally everything today have to be a movement and philosophy? Even "doing good" has to have a bunch of doctrine attached to it? All this intellectual bloat probably ends up doing more harm than good, because as one famous contemporary philosopher says, all ideology is harmful. Let everyone just "do good" their own way independently. Maybe that is in some ways less effective, but it also avoids the formation of cults, that will inevitable be taken over and abused by sociopaths.
pessimizer 4y ago
It sounds wonderful to me. The only problem is that the politics of the people who are doing it are dogshit, but it's also their money, and they're doing what they want with it. Even if that thing they're doing is bankrolling candidates to further their ideals. As per usual, the hypercapitalist WSJ suddenly becomes Stalinist when people the WSJ doesn't like decide to do what they want with their money, time, or speech.
finolex1 4y ago
This is a poorly researched piece that seems designed to drive a partisan wedge into the issue. > Actually, when you work, you already give to society, but that is too complex for some to understand. Charitable giving is obviously in addition to whatever output is produced from one's work. It is also directed more purposefully towards altruistic aims than random consumption. > I did a little digging, and I’m not so sure they’re effective at all. ... they also supply supplements for vitamin A deficiency, though genetically modified “golden” rice already provides vitamin A more effectively. Does he really think that an organization devoted full-time to researching charities has somehow overlooked something basic found by a random WSJ columnist from a quick google search? > That’s a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted Future pandemics are inevitable, and there's no guarantee they won't be more severe than Covid-19. There's lots of room for criticism in the EA movement - in fact that theres an entire contest currently devoted to it (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hvmvrgcxJJ2pYR4X/announcing-a-contest-ea-criticism-and-red-teaming https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hvmvrgcxJJ2pYR4X/...), but this is a poor attempt.
- frakkingcylons 4y ago
  The WSJ opinion section is really poor in contrast to their regular news coverage.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  > This is a poorly researched piece that seems designed to drive a partisan wedge into the issue. >> Actually, when you work, you already give to society, but that is too complex for some to understand. Given the classic free-enterprise position[1] is exactly that “giving to society” should be accomplished through separate charitable organizations funded by business owners or employees, not by grafting secondary objectives onto unrelated businesses, I’m not sure which into which partisan divide it’s supposed to drive a wedge, exactly, in the WSJ of all places. (Yes, that position has pretty low-hanging caveats, but it also has a point.) [1] Friedman (1970), “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr...
AlwaysRock 4y ago
Nice hit piece by the wsj here.
telotortium 4y ago
EA is latest rebranding of progressive NGO complex, news at 11.
otikik 4y ago
I will give this guy a point: Effective Altruism likes to mingle with crypto too much for my taste. I think if they stayed away from it their public image would be better. The rest of the article is really ... well all opinion. "I don't like this, this is bad". And yes, I realize that I did the same thing with crypto on my first paragraph. But I would have provided credible sources to sustain my claims if I was writing a piece on wsj.
- ChadNauseam 4y ago
  the whole point of effective autism is to be effective even if it doesn’t satisfy people’s aesthetic sensibilities. EAs are responsible for the FTX foundation donating millions of dollars to highly cash-efficient charities. that potentially saves hundreds of lives, and certainly improved tens of thousands more. That seems like a pretty good thing to me and I’m glad it happened, although I admit I’m biased because I have a financial interest in crypto
  - otikik 4y ago
    Yes, that particular number has gone up. I am not arguing that. It is more difficult to quantify how crypto is affecting people's lives overall. I know some people who invested in crypto and "now their savings are worth 2/3rd of what they were worth before". There's also the fact that a lot of crypto is used to money launder or evading taxes. It's difficult to know exactly how many people were negatively affected by this, and that is one of the criticisms. Also let's not forget that one of the tenets of crypto, especially on the more shady rug pulls, has always been excessive complexity - making things difficult to estimate or quantify is a feature. You call it "aesthetic sensibilities". I call it "selective number picking".

36 points by resalisbury 4y ago

Sometimes "longtermism" seems like a conspiracy to introduce a large number of fake issues (superhuman A.I.) to distract people away from action on climate change.

mistrial9 4y ago
I can supply a specific, real-world example of this in action. There was a "green business" conference at our University town, with many MBA and entrepreneurial sort of people attending -- an auditorium with panel discussion, maybe about 300 persons with six or eight speakers from large companies active in the area. A person from PG&E (the power company here) a calm and well-spoken woman executive, maybe from a sports background? spoke multiple times about PG&E plans.. every. single. item. discussed by this PG&E exec was at a minimum of ten years away.. many of the replies, it was more years.. so many ways of saying "we are moving towards this" ... and "integrating these systems" .. and "new regulations in progress now" .. etc within six months, the explosion and fire in San Bruno, California [0] and subsequent investigation, showed that PG&E had falsified inspection documents to avoid detecting existing pipeline maintenance, because of course it costs money to fix pipelines. The executive was repeatedly asked about what to do now, and repeatedly every answer was at least ten years away for "reasons". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Though in this case, it's the WSJ op-ed section, world-famous climate change deniers, on the attack, so presumably they'd love it if that was true.

resalisbury 4y ago

This is not a well articulated or researched opinion piece, but it is interesting to see what some individuals initial reaction to Effective Altruism is. And in this case it is obviously negative.

nicoburns 4y ago

I love the idea behind effective altruism, and it definitely has some merit. But unfortunately many of it's proponents are hopelessly naive about what is actually effective, often falling prey to the trap of believing only what is measurable has value, and that is possible to measure the effect of actions taken in complex situations via mere statistical analysis. This does gradually seem to be improving over time so I have hope for the future, but for now it's a movement worth engaging with, but with a massive pinch of salt rather than swallowing their claims wholesale.

ChadNauseam 4y ago

> And Mr. Bankman-Fried’s various entities, along with Cari Tuna and others, have put up about $19 million for a future California ballot measure, the California Pandemic Early Detection and Prevention Act, which would add a 0.75% tax on incomes over $5 million to raise up to $15 billion over 10 years. Catch that? Someone else pays. Effective, but not exactly selfless. > It’s the classic progressive playbook: Raise taxes to fund their pet projects but not yours or mine. I don’t care if altruists spend their own money trying to prevent future risks from robot invasions or green nanotech goo, but they should stop asking American taxpayers to waste money on their quirky concerns. I hoped that after Covid, pandemic preparedness would stop being seen as a "quirky concern", but it seems like we are incapable of learning from our mistakes.

saargrin 4y ago
while i'm onboard for funding pandemic early detection,i am not onboard with spending donations to lobby/politically maneuver the legislature to tax some people via some under the table tax code we should have mature discussions about what we should pay for with our taxes, and i think majority of people would support a rational above board tax policy to prevent COVID type disasters the practical numbers of tax should be left to legislature AFTER a public consensus is reached

dharmaturtle 4y ago

I donate to GiveWell, so I narrowed in on this section: > Yes, they direct money toward malaria nets and treatments for parasitic worms, but they also supply supplements for vitamin A deficiency, though genetically modified “golden” rice already provides vitamin A more effectively. Hmmm, seems like a move backward. GiveWell also suggests direct cash transfers to solve extreme poverty, similar to universal basic income. A thread on golden rice on the EA forum: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AF8hvNXFqhZsDmrTc/should-gmos-e-g-golden-rice-be-a-cause-area https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AF8hvNXFqhZsDmrTc/... It's banned in many countries so it seems like supplements are the most "effective" way forwards. If his best criticism of direct cash transfers is that it's similar to UBI, I'm okay with that.

xorfish 4y ago

> "I don't like these people and these people support EA, so EA is bad. Also I think trickle down economics is an accurate model." This would have been a much shorter article without losing substance.

goethes_kind 4y ago

A bit of a tangential criticism: but does literally everything today have to be a movement and philosophy? Even "doing good" has to have a bunch of doctrine attached to it? All this intellectual bloat probably ends up doing more harm than good, because as one famous contemporary philosopher says, all ideology is harmful. Let everyone just "do good" their own way independently. Maybe that is in some ways less effective, but it also avoids the formation of cults, that will inevitable be taken over and abused by sociopaths.

pessimizer 4y ago

It sounds wonderful to me. The only problem is that the politics of the people who are doing it are dogshit, but it's also their money, and they're doing what they want with it. Even if that thing they're doing is bankrolling candidates to further their ideals. As per usual, the hypercapitalist WSJ suddenly becomes Stalinist when people the WSJ doesn't like decide to do what they want with their money, time, or speech.

finolex1 4y ago

This is a poorly researched piece that seems designed to drive a partisan wedge into the issue. > Actually, when you work, you already give to society, but that is too complex for some to understand. Charitable giving is obviously in addition to whatever output is produced from one's work. It is also directed more purposefully towards altruistic aims than random consumption. > I did a little digging, and I’m not so sure they’re effective at all. ... they also supply supplements for vitamin A deficiency, though genetically modified “golden” rice already provides vitamin A more effectively. Does he really think that an organization devoted full-time to researching charities has somehow overlooked something basic found by a random WSJ columnist from a quick google search? > That’s a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted Future pandemics are inevitable, and there's no guarantee they won't be more severe than Covid-19. There's lots of room for criticism in the EA movement - in fact that theres an entire contest currently devoted to it (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hvmvrgcxJJ2pYR4X/announcing-a-contest-ea-criticism-and-red-teaming https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hvmvrgcxJJ2pYR4X/...), but this is a poor attempt.

frakkingcylons 4y ago
The WSJ opinion section is really poor in contrast to their regular news coverage.
mananaysiempre 4y ago
> This is a poorly researched piece that seems designed to drive a partisan wedge into the issue. >> Actually, when you work, you already give to society, but that is too complex for some to understand. Given the classic free-enterprise position[1] is exactly that “giving to society” should be accomplished through separate charitable organizations funded by business owners or employees, not by grafting secondary objectives onto unrelated businesses, I’m not sure which into which partisan divide it’s supposed to drive a wedge, exactly, in the WSJ of all places. (Yes, that position has pretty low-hanging caveats, but it also has a point.) [1] Friedman (1970), “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr...

AlwaysRock 4y ago

Nice hit piece by the wsj here.

telotortium 4y ago

EA is latest rebranding of progressive NGO complex, news at 11.

otikik 4y ago

I will give this guy a point: Effective Altruism likes to mingle with crypto too much for my taste. I think if they stayed away from it their public image would be better. The rest of the article is really ... well all opinion. "I don't like this, this is bad". And yes, I realize that I did the same thing with crypto on my first paragraph. But I would have provided credible sources to sustain my claims if I was writing a piece on wsj.

ChadNauseam 4y ago
the whole point of effective autism is to be effective even if it doesn’t satisfy people’s aesthetic sensibilities. EAs are responsible for the FTX foundation donating millions of dollars to highly cash-efficient charities. that potentially saves hundreds of lives, and certainly improved tens of thousands more. That seems like a pretty good thing to me and I’m glad it happened, although I admit I’m biased because I have a financial interest in crypto
- otikik 4y ago
  Yes, that particular number has gone up. I am not arguing that. It is more difficult to quantify how crypto is affecting people's lives overall. I know some people who invested in crypto and "now their savings are worth 2/3rd of what they were worth before". There's also the fact that a lot of crypto is used to money launder or evading taxes. It's difficult to know exactly how many people were negatively affected by this, and that is one of the criticisms. Also let's not forget that one of the tenets of crypto, especially on the more shady rug pulls, has always been excessive complexity - making things difficult to estimate or quantify is a feature. You call it "aesthetic sensibilities". I call it "selective number picking".