21 ms·

Against Effective Altruism

79 points by jeffreyrogers 4y ago

chatterhead 4y ago
The author of this piece doesn't seem to understand the basics of systems thinking and the entropic effects of non-moral action on human collectivism. EA won't produce the proper outcomes. It's the 80,000 hours people are likely more attracted to and the job listings that come with it. In most instances, positive outcomes for humans begin with negative perspectives because that's how our psychology works. Practical Altruism isn't about what people deserve it's about what they need. It's not enough to teach a man to fish if he is unwilling to learn. You have to make them believe there will be a crop shortage so they need to learn. True altruists will change their methods of effecting change for the situation, people, times, and needs. Because, if not we as humans will find a way to corrupt it. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher. Which is why the invisible hand acts the way it acts.
- SinParadise 4y ago
  > The author of this piece doesn't seem to understand the basics of systems thinking and the entropic effects of non-moral action on human collectivism. But why should I care about these effects if I am not in charge of such systems?
jschveibinz 4y ago
My response is titled: “Against Academic, Dead-end Philosophical Arguments” Instead of arguing the definition of morality, just go out and help other people. The end.
- biotinker 4y ago
  Subtitle: "Instead of arguing Utilitarianism vs Deontology, everyone should just follow Virtue Ethics"
- User23 4y ago
  That's a lovely sentiment, but it quickly runs into problems. Sometimes it's hard to know if an helpful action will produce a positive outcome. Certainly, just giving people what they ask for won't necessarily do that. For example it's probably better to not help an alcoholic with violent tendencies acquire more liquor, even if he asks very nicely. It's almost as if there's some sort of a need for a normative science of what acts are truly helpful in the sense of improving lives and which aren't. I propose we call those acts that are helpful and make things better "good." Then we can go about trying to figure out what acts are "good" and under what circumstances in some kind of systematic way. Let's give this enterprise a Greek name to make it sound more impressive.
  - smitty1e 4y ago
    I submit that a possible test for whether "helpful action will produce a good outcome" is whether individuals and families are grown internally in the direction of maturity and joy. Actions that externalize the feedback and set up gatekeepers to manage matters seem to hit diminishing returns rapidly. In a musical metaphor, life is jazz. An Effective Altruism seems like so many reams of sheet music that lack joy.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    > That's a lovely sentiment, but it quickly runs into problems. Sometimes it's hard to know if an helpful action will produce a positive outcome. One of the strengths of the 'treat tropical diseases' arm of EA is that 99% people can agree that fewer deaths from malaria is a positive outcome, without having to know WTF "metaethics" and "anti-realism" and "deontology" mean
    - avgcorrection 4y ago
      They just have to know that (1) the organizational overhead is not too high, that (2) that org you found on the web isn’t a scam, that (3) the distribution network is functioning, that (4) malaria nets will be used for that purpose and not be used to fish. Maybe more?
    - dale_glass 4y ago
- kevingadd 4y ago
  When "going out and helping other people" you need to carefully evaluate any side effects or consequences, and also recognize that some methods of helping are more wasteful than others. Would it be better to buy 10 needy people health insurance, or to use that money advocating for health care reforms? What if it's 100 people instead? In general, should you act locally or act globally? Should you invest your money to use it for big improvements, or spend on an ongoing basis making small improvements instead?
  - kipchak 4y ago
    I don't think I would consider a good action wasteful, even if their might have been a outcome with more of a benefit. While it's worth considering for example what the best way to improve overall health is as there's no real objective way to evaluate the superiority of advocating for reform versus helping people directly there isn't much more information available past your present biases and past experiences to sway you one way or the other. I might be able to for example estimate that 1M spent on reform might have x% chance of improving outcomes for y number people, but it would be so tortured of an inference it's really just a guess based on what you already think. As a result I think going with your best guess is good enough, to avoid decision paralysis if nothing else.
dotsam 4y ago
> So here's my pitch to you: effective altruism is the altruism that raises your status the most Effective altruism brings opportunities for status, for sure. But that doesn’t mean trying to help people effectively is a bad thing. Would you walk past a child drowning in a shallow pond, when you could easily intervene and save them?
- cowuser666 4y ago
  Based on how this gets operationalized in argumentation, 99% of people would not. Being confronted with Singer led me to reject ethics, not to become more ethical.
- klyrs 4y ago
  If you're caught on camera saving the child, and become famous doing it, then your status has been raised! If the child goes on to be the next Hitler, are you responsible? I'm not serious about the above, of course, but one can tie theirself in knots overthinking the moral consequences of every action. Which is, I believe, a critique that works equally well against both EA and anti-EA. Do the right thing. If you fuck that up, try to learn and do the right thing tomorrow. Don't overthink it.
benlivengood 4y ago
Are there many effective altruists who are not humanists? As I understand it humanism is founded on moral anti-realism and endorses scientific tools to, at least in principle, discover formal models of human morality so that it can be better optimized.
jzellis 4y ago
Man, this motherfucker must just be a big ol' hoot at parties.
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't do this. If you don't like an article, there are plenty of other things to read. Hopefully you might like some of those. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
alex_young 4y ago
> The moralogians appeal to nothing and expect you to accept it! Is the origin of moral facts natural, or supernatural? If natural, can we engineer our own? Why or why not? This is a strikingly bold way to put it I think. Of course morals are natural in origin, and the shared basis for them is genetic at its core. Does this imply there is some grand plan outside of natural selection for them? Of course not. Does it mean that these rules can be engineered to our liking? No more than you can engineer your own DNA. Maybe someday, but what's the reason? Our billions of years of evolution has done a pretty good job of it IMO. As for altruism, it's painfully obvious that a) it does exist, and that b) it is a universal condition we all hold. Where did altruism come from? Dawkins points to our ancestor's lengthy existence in a small group of ~200 individuals. Survival meant not only optimizing for your own genetic survival, but for that of the collective. Imagine for a moment the vast bulk of humanity living without altruism. I suspect things would fall to pieces very quickly. It's a good thing our genetic code is littered with bits of rules like altruism.
djaouen 4y ago
This is fantastically stupid.
- dang 4y ago
  "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you know more than someone else, that's great—but in that case, please share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=share%20know%20learn%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
jeremysalwen 4y ago
[flagged]
colinmhayes 4y ago
I'm a moral anti-realist, but that doesn't stop me from acting according to my morals. Much like existentialism doesn't stop you from creating internal meaning to life moral anti realism doesn't stop you from having moral opinions. Just because moral statements aren't facts doesn't mean I don't get utility from acting on my chosen moral preferences. In fact, in a non-spiritual world there is no reason for realists and anti-realists to behave differently at all. If there aren't consequences for behaving immorally the only reason to do so is because of how it makes you feel.
dang 4y ago
Related (by title at least): Against ‘Effective Altruism’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28520719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28520719 - Sept 2021 (2 comments) Also (thanks jinpan!): Effective altruism as a tower of assumptions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576224 - Aug 2022 (89 comments) Edit: ok, also these: The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32386984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32386984 - Aug 2022 (185 comments) ‘Effective Altruism’ Is Neither - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32224597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32224597 - July 2022 (22 comments) Notes on Effective Altruism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31609325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31609325 - June 2022 (116 comments) The elitist philanthropy of so-called effective altruism (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31285371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31285371 - May 2022 (78 comments) Effective altruism is not effective - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26813763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26813763 - April 2021 (240 comments)
- flandry93 4y ago
  I also, finding the post at least interesting to think about, and somewhat more compact, wrote my own version of the it, and followed up with some abbreviated notes of what I have been thinking of as a reasonable response/cure to the mentioned problems (ie, as a kind of establishment of a basis for value ethics): https://mflb.com/fine_1/effective_alturism_morality_out.html https://mflb.com/fine_1/effective_alturism_morality_out.html
jinpan 4y ago
One of my favorite essays on "vs effective altruism" - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-a-tower-of https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-...
Apocryphon 4y ago
This article makes for a fun guessing-game to determine what the ideological background of the author is. Effective Altruism definitely seems like one of those heavily-blogged about fads that's in vogue now with the tech-adjacent Rationalist set, so always curious to see who ends up opposing it. > Let me also say that atheism for the masses, in retrospect, was an enormous error. Organized religion as a social technology is invaluable and the modern atomized welfare state is a pathetic replacement. Atheism for the intellectual class is perfectly alright, but in the age of mass literacy there is really no barrier between them and the rest of society. Was atheism inevitable? Perhaps. But the New Atheists certainly didn't help. Extrapolating this line of reasoning is left as an exercise to the reader. As fun as it is to re-litigate the culture wars of yesterdecade, I don't really think the post-Bush administration diminishment of public Christianity in the U.S. is creating the society that the New Atheists want(ed). Conspiracy theories and irrational memeplexes have completely run rampant in the public sphere in the U.S. and the western world. Superstition and magical thinking is all over the place, the objects of devotion just happen to center around modern politics and items from the news, rather than figures from ancient history. If anything, many people are less firm atheists and more like apatheists - people just sort of believe whatever their social circle and social media reinforces.
- WanderPanda 4y ago
  I‘m pretty agnostic but I see the benefits of religious societies. One trend that surprises me is the upturn of astrology especially among well-educated people. When I frame it as just another religion I received confusion in return because apparently they see it as a rational thing to believe in. This was just a personal anecdote from my experience using Bumble and Tinder in a middle eastern country and in the US until I actually checked it on google trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0h6434d https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    > One trend that surprises me is the upturn of astrology I'm not sure astrology ever went away. Nancy Reagan famously consulted her astrologer in the 80s. It was big in the 60s/70s too. There may be some cyclicity to the popularity of astrology where it tends to pop up every 10 or 20 years, but we've been in a rational age for a couple of hundred years where you'd think it would've just completely gone away, but it hasn't. A lot of people are superstitious and want to look for causality where there is none even in modernity.
kvathupo 4y ago
I think many are missing the article's thesis since it's very, _very_ poorly written: "I would argue that altruism is really meant to help the altruist, not the altruee." The critical flaw of the essay is that the only evidence to back this point up is (1) "look, a bunch of people donated to the NY opera!" and (2) "look what some effective altruist said; he must represent all altruists". All in all, the essay's erratic logic is only rendered worse by its incomprehensible thesaurus mangling. Of course, intentional obfuscation is a hedge against criticism. There's poorly-written philosophy and well-written philosophy. This is neither. Edit: My apologies for the caustic comment, but I felt it warranted, given the glib tone of the article
- ReadEvalPost 4y ago
  The article's thesis is that EA's moral realism stance (which finds it's apotheosis in utilitarian moral calculus) is ill-supported and highly questionable, especially when combined with theological anti-realism. It's definitely not written to win over any EA supporter, that's for sure.
  - cedilla 4y ago
    Who is this written for then? It seems to me that the author just builds up a few explicit strawmen and expects that the reader is already on board with the idea that they are obviously idotic.
  - ineptech 4y ago
    Is EA predicated on moral realism? That seems like a straw man. I don't see any contradiction between abandoning realism (i.e. admitting that there is no objective way to measure goodness or other moral qualities) and EA. We probably just define EA differently. When I'm elected dictator, it'll be illegal to write an essay like this without supplying your working definition of the thing you're against.
    - telotortium 4y ago
      In my view, EA generally means "taking utilitarian ethics ('the greatest good for the greatest number (of humans, or perhaps of other lifeforms)', with (premature) death as the worst outcome) literally and seriously in philanthropic work, usually to the exclusion of other philanthropic goals (aesthetic, religious, etc.)". Perhaps there is a form of EA that isn't at its core utilitarian, but then it's just reduced to technocratism and seems unlikely to inspire the almost religious devotion that EA current does.
earthboundkid 4y ago
Mencius already refuted EA in Mencius 3A:5, "I have heard that this MacAskill is an Effective Altruist. Now Singer considers that in the regulation of funeral matters a spare simplicity should be the rule. MacAskill thinks with EA doctrines to change the customs of the kingdom - how does he regard them as if they were wrong, and not honor them? Notwithstanding his views, MacAskill buried his own parents in a sumptuous manner, and so he served them in the way which his doctrines discountenance. … "Heaven gives birth to creatures in such a way that they have one root, and MacAskill makes them to have two roots. This is the cause of his error. In the most ancient times, there were some who did not inter their parents. When their parents died, they took them up and threw them into some water-channel. Afterwards, when passing by them, they saw foxes and wild-cats devouring them, and flies and gnats biting at them. The perspiration started out upon their foreheads, and they looked away, unable to bear the sight. It was not on account of other people that this perspiration flowed. The emotions of their hearts affected their faces and eyes, and instantly they went home, and came back with baskets and spades and covered the bodies. If the covering them thus was indeed right, you may see that the filial son and virtuous man, in interring in a handsome manner their parents, act according to a proper rule." EA is based on our natural emotional responses: pain is bad, pleasure is good, etc. But it rationalizes until it has lost its own roots. Suddenly we're debating about making lions extinct because they hunt prey and converting the universe to hedonium. You must preserve the root!
- typon 4y ago
  I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or a serious attempt at critiquing Effective Altruism. Can anyone disentangle this (word salad) for me?
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    TL;DR those who aim for rationally-directed good behavior end up doing things (i.e. expending resources that could have gone to something more-beneficial) that don't fit their rational-good framework—when they run into these seemingly deeper impulses and urges toward right-behavior, they can't or don't resist them in favor of their rational framework. In the passage's language, an effective-altruist is born with one "root" (I suppose the author would argue one that's very similar for most everyone) but create another with reason, which leads to tension when the two are in conflict. (I have no dog in this fight, this is the best I can do to sort out the meaning of the post, I'm not necessarily interested in defending its argument)
yashap 4y ago
This article is written in such a scattered/hectic style that I’m honestly kind of worried for the author. Has the vibe of a manic episode and was almost impossible to follow.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  Not sure I would go so far as to be worried for the author as I believe we all have such thoughts when trying to grapple with complex and competing theories, but it's definitely a stream of consciousness and not a coherent essay written for effective communication.
renewiltord 4y ago
Effective Altruism of the AI streak in a POSIWID sense appears to have the purpose of creating a shit ton of blog posts and no other discernable outcome. The other variant of the GiveWell.org kind which is QALY focused appears to have worked on the QALY metric. Not everyone believes in QALY-based utilitarianism, so they're predictably unhappy, but that's it.
rthomas6 4y ago
I'm too dumb to understand what this article is talking about. I thought Effective Altruism was about maximizing goodness/dollar when donating to charity. I assumed the measure of goodness was treated as an axiom, and up for critique. Number of lives saved per dollar seems to be a common metric, and one can argue why or why not that's a good measure. The article, as far as I can follow it, seems to be trying to discredit the idea that we can know what a good measure is, objectively. Okay, I guess I can see that. But who cares? Lives/dollar seems like a good measure to me, and I like it. No more reasoning required. It's my money and I decide what to do with it. And I can still think people who disagree with me are wrong. Moral realism, metaethics, what is all this crap? Is there more to Effective Altruism that I am unaware of? What are they even trying to argue? On either side?
- telotortium 4y ago
  Without moral realism, why should I care about your personal moral preferences?
  - rthomas6 4y ago
    You don't have to care about that. You just look at the metrics for goodness I'm using, and the assumptions underlying that, and see if you agree with them. Some of them are pretty common, such as human life having value in itself. I guess I see the point of the article now, if EA people are saying their way of measuring goodness is the only way. That does deserve skepticism and requests for proof.
    - Eliezer 4y ago
      Don't worry. They are not saying any such thing.
  - cf 4y ago
    You don't need moral realism to arrive at a set of mutually agreed upon moral values. You don't have to agree with your friends on what's the best food in the world is in order to choose a place to have dinner. There is an argument that you don't like the process by which the moral values were arrived to, but that's hardly a reason to indulge in moral nihilism.
oneoff1122 4y ago
I am skeptical of effective altruism as anything useful or worthwhile but this article doesn't address the real issues with the movement. There is a fundamental flaw with utilitarianism and it's the fact that "good" can not be defined in terms of utility functions. It's not possible to reduce morality to mathematics and dollar expenditure but that seems to be what effective altruists are proposing. Reduced to its core propositions it is essentially an economic religion with utility maximization as its only commandment.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  > There is a fundamental flaw with utilitarianism and it's the fact that "good" can not be defined in terms of utility functions. Why not? I'd say huge parts of human behavior are enormously utilitarian. Eg, a huge amount of people will be pro-war if the war has a good purpose to it. Ultimately a war consists of A killing B, and B killing A, and most everyone will find a side to cheer for, which is usually extremely predictable based on who and where they are. > It's not possible to reduce morality to mathematics and dollar expenditure but that seems to be what effective altruists are proposing. I think on the whole examining the consequences of our actions results in a more pleasant world to live in long term. It's important to actually think why we're doing what we're doing. Is it to earn moral points for ourselves, or to create a better world long term? Eg, charity done carelessly can be destructive to those we intend to help.
avgcorrection 4y ago
> Your "adaptation execution" has been memetically hijacked—where once you would get good things in return for your "altruism" (a stronger community, status, reciprocal altruism, coalition-building, or even "niceness, community, and civilization"), a runaway meme has now convinced you that it's actually better to get nothing!5 You get all the costs of religion, and none of the prosocial benefits! This is true. Or wrong, because getting nothing in return is very much in the spirit of Christian self-sacrifice.
pjdorrell 4y ago
Link to something I wrote once, which includes a discussion about absolute vs relative morality: http://thinkinghard.com/blog/BiologyOfMorality.html http://thinkinghard.com/blog/BiologyOfMorality.html. (It would appear that "moral realism" is just another way of saying "absolute morality", or "moral absolutism".)
astine 4y ago
"Now, you might be thinking "But Alvaro, you idiot, we're adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers! This is all perfectly alright, you see." Sure, we're adaptation executors, but that doesn't give you a blank check to execute whatever retarded adaptation was bred into your hairy great-....great-grandfather 500,000 years ago, and is now incompatible with the world you live in" Huh? Yes it does. You can't go on a rant in favor of moral anti-realism and them criticize people for not having the right set of values. I mean, you can, but it makes you an idiot.
wizwit999 4y ago
Can't follow this article, but there is a certain hubris to effective altruism folk that is rather off putting. As if to think fate is in our mortal hands. A charity of a single date with the right intention could outweigh millions of dollars with the wrong one.

79 points by jeffreyrogers 4y ago

The author of this piece doesn't seem to understand the basics of systems thinking and the entropic effects of non-moral action on human collectivism. EA won't produce the proper outcomes. It's the 80,000 hours people are likely more attracted to and the job listings that come with it. In most instances, positive outcomes for humans begin with negative perspectives because that's how our psychology works. Practical Altruism isn't about what people deserve it's about what they need. It's not enough to teach a man to fish if he is unwilling to learn. You have to make them believe there will be a crop shortage so they need to learn. True altruists will change their methods of effecting change for the situation, people, times, and needs. Because, if not we as humans will find a way to corrupt it. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher. Which is why the invisible hand acts the way it acts.

SinParadise 4y ago
> The author of this piece doesn't seem to understand the basics of systems thinking and the entropic effects of non-moral action on human collectivism. But why should I care about these effects if I am not in charge of such systems?

jschveibinz 4y ago

My response is titled: “Against Academic, Dead-end Philosophical Arguments” Instead of arguing the definition of morality, just go out and help other people. The end.

biotinker 4y ago
Subtitle: "Instead of arguing Utilitarianism vs Deontology, everyone should just follow Virtue Ethics"
User23 4y ago
That's a lovely sentiment, but it quickly runs into problems. Sometimes it's hard to know if an helpful action will produce a positive outcome. Certainly, just giving people what they ask for won't necessarily do that. For example it's probably better to not help an alcoholic with violent tendencies acquire more liquor, even if he asks very nicely. It's almost as if there's some sort of a need for a normative science of what acts are truly helpful in the sense of improving lives and which aren't. I propose we call those acts that are helpful and make things better "good." Then we can go about trying to figure out what acts are "good" and under what circumstances in some kind of systematic way. Let's give this enterprise a Greek name to make it sound more impressive.
- smitty1e 4y ago
  I submit that a possible test for whether "helpful action will produce a good outcome" is whether individuals and families are grown internally in the direction of maturity and joy. Actions that externalize the feedback and set up gatekeepers to manage matters seem to hit diminishing returns rapidly. In a musical metaphor, life is jazz. An Effective Altruism seems like so many reams of sheet music that lack joy.
- michaelt 4y ago
  > That's a lovely sentiment, but it quickly runs into problems. Sometimes it's hard to know if an helpful action will produce a positive outcome. One of the strengths of the 'treat tropical diseases' arm of EA is that 99% people can agree that fewer deaths from malaria is a positive outcome, without having to know WTF "metaethics" and "anti-realism" and "deontology" mean
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    They just have to know that (1) the organizational overhead is not too high, that (2) that org you found on the web isn’t a scam, that (3) the distribution network is functioning, that (4) malaria nets will be used for that purpose and not be used to fish. Maybe more?
  - dale_glass 4y ago
kevingadd 4y ago
When "going out and helping other people" you need to carefully evaluate any side effects or consequences, and also recognize that some methods of helping are more wasteful than others. Would it be better to buy 10 needy people health insurance, or to use that money advocating for health care reforms? What if it's 100 people instead? In general, should you act locally or act globally? Should you invest your money to use it for big improvements, or spend on an ongoing basis making small improvements instead?
- kipchak 4y ago
  I don't think I would consider a good action wasteful, even if their might have been a outcome with more of a benefit. While it's worth considering for example what the best way to improve overall health is as there's no real objective way to evaluate the superiority of advocating for reform versus helping people directly there isn't much more information available past your present biases and past experiences to sway you one way or the other. I might be able to for example estimate that 1M spent on reform might have x% chance of improving outcomes for y number people, but it would be so tortured of an inference it's really just a guess based on what you already think. As a result I think going with your best guess is good enough, to avoid decision paralysis if nothing else.

dotsam 4y ago

> So here's my pitch to you: effective altruism is the altruism that raises your status the most Effective altruism brings opportunities for status, for sure. But that doesn’t mean trying to help people effectively is a bad thing. Would you walk past a child drowning in a shallow pond, when you could easily intervene and save them?

cowuser666 4y ago
Based on how this gets operationalized in argumentation, 99% of people would not. Being confronted with Singer led me to reject ethics, not to become more ethical.
klyrs 4y ago
If you're caught on camera saving the child, and become famous doing it, then your status has been raised! If the child goes on to be the next Hitler, are you responsible? I'm not serious about the above, of course, but one can tie theirself in knots overthinking the moral consequences of every action. Which is, I believe, a critique that works equally well against both EA and anti-EA. Do the right thing. If you fuck that up, try to learn and do the right thing tomorrow. Don't overthink it.

benlivengood 4y ago

Are there many effective altruists who are not humanists? As I understand it humanism is founded on moral anti-realism and endorses scientific tools to, at least in principle, discover formal models of human morality so that it can be better optimized.

jzellis 4y ago

Man, this motherfucker must just be a big ol' hoot at parties.

dang 4y ago
Please don't do this. If you don't like an article, there are plenty of other things to read. Hopefully you might like some of those. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

alex_young 4y ago

> The moralogians appeal to nothing and expect you to accept it! Is the origin of moral facts natural, or supernatural? If natural, can we engineer our own? Why or why not? This is a strikingly bold way to put it I think. Of course morals are natural in origin, and the shared basis for them is genetic at its core. Does this imply there is some grand plan outside of natural selection for them? Of course not. Does it mean that these rules can be engineered to our liking? No more than you can engineer your own DNA. Maybe someday, but what's the reason? Our billions of years of evolution has done a pretty good job of it IMO. As for altruism, it's painfully obvious that a) it does exist, and that b) it is a universal condition we all hold. Where did altruism come from? Dawkins points to our ancestor's lengthy existence in a small group of ~200 individuals. Survival meant not only optimizing for your own genetic survival, but for that of the collective. Imagine for a moment the vast bulk of humanity living without altruism. I suspect things would fall to pieces very quickly. It's a good thing our genetic code is littered with bits of rules like altruism.

djaouen 4y ago

This is fantastically stupid.

dang 4y ago
"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you know more than someone else, that's great—but in that case, please share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=share%20know%20learn%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

jeremysalwen 4y ago

[flagged]

colinmhayes 4y ago

I'm a moral anti-realist, but that doesn't stop me from acting according to my morals. Much like existentialism doesn't stop you from creating internal meaning to life moral anti realism doesn't stop you from having moral opinions. Just because moral statements aren't facts doesn't mean I don't get utility from acting on my chosen moral preferences. In fact, in a non-spiritual world there is no reason for realists and anti-realists to behave differently at all. If there aren't consequences for behaving immorally the only reason to do so is because of how it makes you feel.

dang 4y ago

Related (by title at least): Against ‘Effective Altruism’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28520719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28520719 - Sept 2021 (2 comments) Also (thanks jinpan!): Effective altruism as a tower of assumptions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576224 - Aug 2022 (89 comments) Edit: ok, also these: The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32386984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32386984 - Aug 2022 (185 comments) ‘Effective Altruism’ Is Neither - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32224597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32224597 - July 2022 (22 comments) Notes on Effective Altruism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31609325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31609325 - June 2022 (116 comments) The elitist philanthropy of so-called effective altruism (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31285371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31285371 - May 2022 (78 comments) Effective altruism is not effective - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26813763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26813763 - April 2021 (240 comments)

flandry93 4y ago
I also, finding the post at least interesting to think about, and somewhat more compact, wrote my own version of the it, and followed up with some abbreviated notes of what I have been thinking of as a reasonable response/cure to the mentioned problems (ie, as a kind of establishment of a basis for value ethics): https://mflb.com/fine_1/effective_alturism_morality_out.html https://mflb.com/fine_1/effective_alturism_morality_out.html

jinpan 4y ago

One of my favorite essays on "vs effective altruism" - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-a-tower-of https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-as-...

Apocryphon 4y ago

This article makes for a fun guessing-game to determine what the ideological background of the author is. Effective Altruism definitely seems like one of those heavily-blogged about fads that's in vogue now with the tech-adjacent Rationalist set, so always curious to see who ends up opposing it. > Let me also say that atheism for the masses, in retrospect, was an enormous error. Organized religion as a social technology is invaluable and the modern atomized welfare state is a pathetic replacement. Atheism for the intellectual class is perfectly alright, but in the age of mass literacy there is really no barrier between them and the rest of society. Was atheism inevitable? Perhaps. But the New Atheists certainly didn't help. Extrapolating this line of reasoning is left as an exercise to the reader. As fun as it is to re-litigate the culture wars of yesterdecade, I don't really think the post-Bush administration diminishment of public Christianity in the U.S. is creating the society that the New Atheists want(ed). Conspiracy theories and irrational memeplexes have completely run rampant in the public sphere in the U.S. and the western world. Superstition and magical thinking is all over the place, the objects of devotion just happen to center around modern politics and items from the news, rather than figures from ancient history. If anything, many people are less firm atheists and more like apatheists - people just sort of believe whatever their social circle and social media reinforces.

WanderPanda 4y ago
I‘m pretty agnostic but I see the benefits of religious societies. One trend that surprises me is the upturn of astrology especially among well-educated people. When I frame it as just another religion I received confusion in return because apparently they see it as a rational thing to believe in. This was just a personal anecdote from my experience using Bumble and Tinder in a middle eastern country and in the US until I actually checked it on google trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0h6434d https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > One trend that surprises me is the upturn of astrology I'm not sure astrology ever went away. Nancy Reagan famously consulted her astrologer in the 80s. It was big in the 60s/70s too. There may be some cyclicity to the popularity of astrology where it tends to pop up every 10 or 20 years, but we've been in a rational age for a couple of hundred years where you'd think it would've just completely gone away, but it hasn't. A lot of people are superstitious and want to look for causality where there is none even in modernity.

kvathupo 4y ago

I think many are missing the article's thesis since it's very, _very_ poorly written: "I would argue that altruism is really meant to help the altruist, not the altruee." The critical flaw of the essay is that the only evidence to back this point up is (1) "look, a bunch of people donated to the NY opera!" and (2) "look what some effective altruist said; he must represent all altruists". All in all, the essay's erratic logic is only rendered worse by its incomprehensible thesaurus mangling. Of course, intentional obfuscation is a hedge against criticism. There's poorly-written philosophy and well-written philosophy. This is neither. Edit: My apologies for the caustic comment, but I felt it warranted, given the glib tone of the article

ReadEvalPost 4y ago
The article's thesis is that EA's moral realism stance (which finds it's apotheosis in utilitarian moral calculus) is ill-supported and highly questionable, especially when combined with theological anti-realism. It's definitely not written to win over any EA supporter, that's for sure.
- cedilla 4y ago
  Who is this written for then? It seems to me that the author just builds up a few explicit strawmen and expects that the reader is already on board with the idea that they are obviously idotic.
- ineptech 4y ago
  Is EA predicated on moral realism? That seems like a straw man. I don't see any contradiction between abandoning realism (i.e. admitting that there is no objective way to measure goodness or other moral qualities) and EA. We probably just define EA differently. When I'm elected dictator, it'll be illegal to write an essay like this without supplying your working definition of the thing you're against.
  - telotortium 4y ago
    In my view, EA generally means "taking utilitarian ethics ('the greatest good for the greatest number (of humans, or perhaps of other lifeforms)', with (premature) death as the worst outcome) literally and seriously in philanthropic work, usually to the exclusion of other philanthropic goals (aesthetic, religious, etc.)". Perhaps there is a form of EA that isn't at its core utilitarian, but then it's just reduced to technocratism and seems unlikely to inspire the almost religious devotion that EA current does.

earthboundkid 4y ago

Mencius already refuted EA in Mencius 3A:5, "I have heard that this MacAskill is an Effective Altruist. Now Singer considers that in the regulation of funeral matters a spare simplicity should be the rule. MacAskill thinks with EA doctrines to change the customs of the kingdom - how does he regard them as if they were wrong, and not honor them? Notwithstanding his views, MacAskill buried his own parents in a sumptuous manner, and so he served them in the way which his doctrines discountenance. … "Heaven gives birth to creatures in such a way that they have one root, and MacAskill makes them to have two roots. This is the cause of his error. In the most ancient times, there were some who did not inter their parents. When their parents died, they took them up and threw them into some water-channel. Afterwards, when passing by them, they saw foxes and wild-cats devouring them, and flies and gnats biting at them. The perspiration started out upon their foreheads, and they looked away, unable to bear the sight. It was not on account of other people that this perspiration flowed. The emotions of their hearts affected their faces and eyes, and instantly they went home, and came back with baskets and spades and covered the bodies. If the covering them thus was indeed right, you may see that the filial son and virtuous man, in interring in a handsome manner their parents, act according to a proper rule." EA is based on our natural emotional responses: pain is bad, pleasure is good, etc. But it rationalizes until it has lost its own roots. Suddenly we're debating about making lions extinct because they hunt prey and converting the universe to hedonium. You must preserve the root!

typon 4y ago
I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or a serious attempt at critiquing Effective Altruism. Can anyone disentangle this (word salad) for me?
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  TL;DR those who aim for rationally-directed good behavior end up doing things (i.e. expending resources that could have gone to something more-beneficial) that don't fit their rational-good framework—when they run into these seemingly deeper impulses and urges toward right-behavior, they can't or don't resist them in favor of their rational framework. In the passage's language, an effective-altruist is born with one "root" (I suppose the author would argue one that's very similar for most everyone) but create another with reason, which leads to tension when the two are in conflict. (I have no dog in this fight, this is the best I can do to sort out the meaning of the post, I'm not necessarily interested in defending its argument)

yashap 4y ago

This article is written in such a scattered/hectic style that I’m honestly kind of worried for the author. Has the vibe of a manic episode and was almost impossible to follow.

chrisco255 4y ago
Not sure I would go so far as to be worried for the author as I believe we all have such thoughts when trying to grapple with complex and competing theories, but it's definitely a stream of consciousness and not a coherent essay written for effective communication.

renewiltord 4y ago

Effective Altruism of the AI streak in a POSIWID sense appears to have the purpose of creating a shit ton of blog posts and no other discernable outcome. The other variant of the GiveWell.org kind which is QALY focused appears to have worked on the QALY metric. Not everyone believes in QALY-based utilitarianism, so they're predictably unhappy, but that's it.

rthomas6 4y ago

I'm too dumb to understand what this article is talking about. I thought Effective Altruism was about maximizing goodness/dollar when donating to charity. I assumed the measure of goodness was treated as an axiom, and up for critique. Number of lives saved per dollar seems to be a common metric, and one can argue why or why not that's a good measure. The article, as far as I can follow it, seems to be trying to discredit the idea that we can know what a good measure is, objectively. Okay, I guess I can see that. But who cares? Lives/dollar seems like a good measure to me, and I like it. No more reasoning required. It's my money and I decide what to do with it. And I can still think people who disagree with me are wrong. Moral realism, metaethics, what is all this crap? Is there more to Effective Altruism that I am unaware of? What are they even trying to argue? On either side?

telotortium 4y ago
Without moral realism, why should I care about your personal moral preferences?
- rthomas6 4y ago
  You don't have to care about that. You just look at the metrics for goodness I'm using, and the assumptions underlying that, and see if you agree with them. Some of them are pretty common, such as human life having value in itself. I guess I see the point of the article now, if EA people are saying their way of measuring goodness is the only way. That does deserve skepticism and requests for proof.
  - Eliezer 4y ago
    Don't worry. They are not saying any such thing.
- cf 4y ago
  You don't need moral realism to arrive at a set of mutually agreed upon moral values. You don't have to agree with your friends on what's the best food in the world is in order to choose a place to have dinner. There is an argument that you don't like the process by which the moral values were arrived to, but that's hardly a reason to indulge in moral nihilism.

oneoff1122 4y ago

I am skeptical of effective altruism as anything useful or worthwhile but this article doesn't address the real issues with the movement. There is a fundamental flaw with utilitarianism and it's the fact that "good" can not be defined in terms of utility functions. It's not possible to reduce morality to mathematics and dollar expenditure but that seems to be what effective altruists are proposing. Reduced to its core propositions it is essentially an economic religion with utility maximization as its only commandment.

dale_glass 4y ago
> There is a fundamental flaw with utilitarianism and it's the fact that "good" can not be defined in terms of utility functions. Why not? I'd say huge parts of human behavior are enormously utilitarian. Eg, a huge amount of people will be pro-war if the war has a good purpose to it. Ultimately a war consists of A killing B, and B killing A, and most everyone will find a side to cheer for, which is usually extremely predictable based on who and where they are. > It's not possible to reduce morality to mathematics and dollar expenditure but that seems to be what effective altruists are proposing. I think on the whole examining the consequences of our actions results in a more pleasant world to live in long term. It's important to actually think why we're doing what we're doing. Is it to earn moral points for ourselves, or to create a better world long term? Eg, charity done carelessly can be destructive to those we intend to help.

avgcorrection 4y ago

> Your "adaptation execution" has been memetically hijacked—where once you would get good things in return for your "altruism" (a stronger community, status, reciprocal altruism, coalition-building, or even "niceness, community, and civilization"), a runaway meme has now convinced you that it's actually better to get nothing!5 You get all the costs of religion, and none of the prosocial benefits! This is true. Or wrong, because getting nothing in return is very much in the spirit of Christian self-sacrifice.

pjdorrell 4y ago

Link to something I wrote once, which includes a discussion about absolute vs relative morality: http://thinkinghard.com/blog/BiologyOfMorality.html http://thinkinghard.com/blog/BiologyOfMorality.html. (It would appear that "moral realism" is just another way of saying "absolute morality", or "moral absolutism".)

astine 4y ago

"Now, you might be thinking "But Alvaro, you idiot, we're adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers! This is all perfectly alright, you see." Sure, we're adaptation executors, but that doesn't give you a blank check to execute whatever retarded adaptation was bred into your hairy great-....great-grandfather 500,000 years ago, and is now incompatible with the world you live in" Huh? Yes it does. You can't go on a rant in favor of moral anti-realism and them criticize people for not having the right set of values. I mean, you can, but it makes you an idiot.

wizwit999 4y ago

Can't follow this article, but there is a certain hubris to effective altruism folk that is rather off putting. As if to think fate is in our mortal hands. A charity of a single date with the right intention could outweigh millions of dollars with the wrong one.