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> The example of a community theater highlights another issue I have with effective altruism. It effectively encourages you to only donate to things you can mak

> The example of a community theater highlights another issue I have with effective altruism. It effectively encourages you to only donate to things you can make a quantifiable case for. Then you will be delighted/horrified to find out that the effective altruism community doesn't feel the need to make quantifiable justifications for how they spend their own donations, as evidenced by this $20k grant they gave someone to learn to ride a bike and think about AI[1]. That's about 3853 to 4090 mosquito nets' worth of donations, using GiveWell's numbers for the Against Malaria Foundation[2]. [1] https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g/long-term-future-fund-april-2019-grant-decisions#Lauren_Lee___20_000__ https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g/... [2] https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf

roenxi 4y ago
I am not sure exactly what people miss, but taking a stab in the dark - human emotions have evolved over millions of years to try and guide people in the direction of making rational decisions more often than not. The expected situation is that the rational option and the emotional option align. If they don't, that means: 1. Your model of the world is incomplete or inconsistent (eg, forgetting to include negotiation as a strategy, forgetting long term consequences). 2. You've hit on a cognitive bias and can probably do a huge amount of good that other people will miss (eg, lending with interest -> modern industrial society, rule of law rather than letting high status people do whatever -> mass prosperity). The cognitive bias is probably well known and understood and the evidence that the emotional response leads to poor outcomes should be obvious.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Mass prosperity -> too many entitled folks -> mass destruction of environment -> meta vr as alternative environment in post apocalyptic hellscape
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > I am not sure exactly what people miss, but taking a stab in the dark - human emotions have evolved over millions of years to try and guide people in the direction of making rational decisions more often than not. The expected situation is that the rational option and the emotional option align. I'm completely befuddled by this. My experience is that people make most decisions emotionally and then harness their brain to rationalize those irrational decisions after the fact. It's the reason that science (the process) has to exist. Because people will fool themselves to reach a conclusion they want if there are no procedural guardrails.
blitzar 4y ago
SBF gave $40 million - 800,000 mosquito nets to candidates in politcal races. Surely 800,000 mosquito nets is "more effective" than 800,000 robo calls and shitty campaign ads with a moron at the end saying "I'm Joe Blow, and I endorse this bullshit"
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  This doesn't seem evidence that EA is bad so much that SBF was a bad effective altruist?
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    The problem is EA community rallied around SBF while he was doing this stuff publicly.

roenxi 4y ago

I am not sure exactly what people miss, but taking a stab in the dark - human emotions have evolved over millions of years to try and guide people in the direction of making rational decisions more often than not. The expected situation is that the rational option and the emotional option align. If they don't, that means: 1. Your model of the world is incomplete or inconsistent (eg, forgetting to include negotiation as a strategy, forgetting long term consequences). 2. You've hit on a cognitive bias and can probably do a huge amount of good that other people will miss (eg, lending with interest -> modern industrial society, rule of law rather than letting high status people do whatever -> mass prosperity). The cognitive bias is probably well known and understood and the evidence that the emotional response leads to poor outcomes should be obvious.

peteradio 4y ago
Mass prosperity -> too many entitled folks -> mass destruction of environment -> meta vr as alternative environment in post apocalyptic hellscape
AlexandrB 4y ago
> I am not sure exactly what people miss, but taking a stab in the dark - human emotions have evolved over millions of years to try and guide people in the direction of making rational decisions more often than not. The expected situation is that the rational option and the emotional option align. I'm completely befuddled by this. My experience is that people make most decisions emotionally and then harness their brain to rationalize those irrational decisions after the fact. It's the reason that science (the process) has to exist. Because people will fool themselves to reach a conclusion they want if there are no procedural guardrails.

blitzar 4y ago

SBF gave $40 million - 800,000 mosquito nets to candidates in politcal races. Surely 800,000 mosquito nets is "more effective" than 800,000 robo calls and shitty campaign ads with a moron at the end saying "I'm Joe Blow, and I endorse this bullshit"

FeepingCreature 4y ago
This doesn't seem evidence that EA is bad so much that SBF was a bad effective altruist?
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  The problem is EA community rallied around SBF while he was doing this stuff publicly.