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Wow, I took EA to mean try donating using analysis like givewell does. Judging by the article and comments, it looks as if people are living by a creed to be e
by jopsen 4y ago
Wow, I took EA to mean try donating using analysis like givewell does.
Judging by the article and comments, it looks as if people are living by a creed to be effectively altruistic.
In general any philosophy where you think there is an optimal answer suffers from the risk that the answer could be wrong.
In the case of givewell, one limitation is that you only support causes that demonstrate impact -- you don't support causes that take risks.
I'm sure there is many other reasons not think that everything can be solved through the application of logic :)
- medstrom 4y agoYou weren't wrong, EA is basically the mindset of donating using analysis. As you fear, at the start the movement suffered from overemphasis on causes that can demonstrate impact. But it's not incompatible with risk-taking, if you personally deem the potential payoff as more than enough. Lately the movement is more nuanced, allowing room for harder-to-measure, "softer" causes like moral circle expansion, even if they're riskier, and even if you outsource part of your judgment to people closer to the cause: https://guerrillafoundation.org/additional-thoughts-on-effective-altruism/ https://guerrillafoundation.org/additional-thoughts-on-effec...