5 ms·

Is it a bad thing?

by mikkqu 4y ago

Is it a bad thing?

emodendroket 4y ago
Is it a bad thing that people can convince themselves that whatever they do to make a lot of money is ethical as long as they buy some mosquito nets afterward? I can see some potential issues.
- tfigment 4y ago
  Felix Salmon on Slate Money podcast this past weekend suggest that its still net positive given alternative is those people don't even try to make world better. More nuanced than that but my take on the position.
  - HarryHirsch 4y ago
    Effective altruism sounds like choosing between destroying the enviroment and destroying the enviroment with some greenwashing on top. In my mind, the movement amounts to PR to make excessive riches and excessive political influence palatable.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    What if the alternative might be someone says “no, this is a bridge too far for me” and just doesn’t do something?
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  > whatever they do to make a lot of money is ethical as long as they buy some mosquito nets afterward EA doesn't support this. It's absolutely not okay to do immoral things to make money and even things like Earning to Give via legit quant roles is and was pretty hotly debated.
  - p10jkle 4y ago
    But what in the philosophy of EA really disallows it? In a utilitarian model, if I can do a lot of good by doing some bad (eg, steal from crypto investors and give the money to AI safety research), what did I do wrong? I appreciate that this can discredit EA and hurt their efforts, but this is a short-termist concern; in the long run, the AI research might end up being more important than the transient reputational damage. Furthermore, what if there's only a 5% chance of being caught doing something immoral? Then, in expectation, the positive impact is even higher. It's all very well to pay lip service to 'common sense morality' but it doesn't seem to fit into the actual theology of EA, and this is what fanatics are most likely to follow.
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      > But what in the philosophy of EA really disallows it Because most people who are willing to donate x% of their salary to charity tends to be decent people? Apart from that, there's tons of fundermental EA posts and writings that talk about how EA cannot be an 'ends justify the means' philosophy to donating. Sadly this SBF shit has really corrupted the core message which is to be skeptical of charities and view them like investments, picking the best one for QALY per $, and valuing all lives equally. I don't even like the futurist side of EA because I personally can't put the value of a hypothetical person above someone who's sick today and focus on global health & animal welfare. Honestly the core point of EA is imo very hard to discredit aside from longtermism.
      - tomrod 4y ago
        > There's tons of fundermental EA posts and writings that talk about how EA cannot be an 'ends justify the means' philosophy to donating. This is at odds with its core adoption of utilitarianism, which is the movement's fundamental justification. Utilitarianism is sort of textbook "sounds nice on paper, works crappy in practice" outcome.
        eddsh1994 4y ago
        That's because they're not the same thing and all the press EA has recently received is completely butchering the much more nuanced message. It's covered briefly here https://www.effectivealtruism.org/faqs-criticism-objections https://www.effectivealtruism.org/faqs-criticism-objections
        tomrod 4y ago
        Pushback: the press has gotten this correct, and EA's attempts at distinguishing itself as something else have failed.
        eddsh1994 4y ago
        How can the press be correct about what something is, when that something has since its inception been both vocally and actively different? Even going back to Singers books that sort of kicked this all off its specifically said to be different to utilitarianism. Most advocates of EA say they're not utilitarian. I'm saying I'm not utilitarian. EA organizations actions are clearly not utilitarian in general. I don't really know how to defend EA as not Utilitarian beyond that, except saying take a look at some EA-based books or blog posts that aren't from the last month and decide for yourself!
  - chrchang523 4y ago
    People are not forced to treat EA as an all-or-nothing package. If some of their claims are more convincing than others, and acceptance of only the more-convincing claims leads to SBF-like behavior with much-higher-than-background probability, it is important to strengthen some arguments, and/or withdraw community support for ideas that are currently too unsafe in practice.
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      I agree with this. I think there are two sides of EA - the futurist utilitarian viewpoint and the rational QALY/$ viewpoint. I'm a believer of the latter, but do worry because this is boring (malaria nets and deworming) the former is the only one people hear of or see even if it's a minority group.
  - zestyping 4y ago
    [This has been moved to a top-level comment.]
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      What enormous damage has it caused? I say this as someone who took the Earning to Give path from 80,000 hours and happily donate to healthcare charities suggested by Givewell via Giving What We Can. My wife took the other path and is a postdoc at Stanford working on medical research with an EA focus (both in her field and on replication crisis in medicine). I'm pretty in this space so to speak, albeit only in a small way.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  Feels like the same logic all over again as when we had tyrant kings sending out their peasants to get killed in a field in order to win them more lands and wealth, then dumping their fortune into building a cathedral to try to buy their way into heaven.
grebulon 4y ago
I think so. The way I see it, effective altruism is a dangerous trend because it can very quickly go into the 'ends justify the means' territory.' In the case of SBF, if he essentially stole from a bunch of retail investors, and then went about doing altruism (this is not yet verified, of course) did he ultimately create a net positive? That only works if the investors in FTX did not lose out, which they did. Anything that goes into the 'ends justifies the means' territory ends up badly. Sometimes immediately, sometimes over time, but always.
- MarkPNeyer 4y ago
  Can you name some notion of “good” that doesn’t run the risk of going into “ends justify the means” territory?
  - phkahler 4y ago
    Offering to help a stranger that seems to be in need.
  - thazework 4y ago
    Bartleby
- mc32 4y ago
  From the horse’s mouth: “Ya. Hehe. I [SBF] had to be. It’s what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those guys who get fucked by it, by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.” https://www.gawker.com/money/sam-bankman-fried-is-so-stupid-its-incredible https://www.gawker.com/money/sam-bankman-fried-is-so-stupid-...
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  > and then went about doing altruism He did donate and fund many people through his FTX Foundation and donations via Giving What We Can. I know this because 1) people were funded with real money, even if some people who have not received money yet are of course screwed and 2) I did some voluntary data analysis work for some EA orgs and saw figures, SBF donated.
HarryHirsch 4y ago
The rich man who came to Jesus asking him what he should do knew that too much money was a bad thing. He followed all the commandments but felt that it wasn't enough.
lordnacho 4y ago
Yes. You're not just cleaning your own conscience but also your image in the minds of other people. It's basically a license to be a charming scoundrel. Everything good you do can be balanced by some vice of yours, and that's how we get powerful people abusing their employees and other relations. The MO is not new, you might have heard of the Sacklers donating to art. Should it buy them any sympathy for what they've done? Doubt it. If you want to do good things, do good things. As soon as you do a good thing and get publicity for it, I'm going to think you're buying publicity. I think there's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm about this.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  If you're after good publicity, then EA is a spectacularly bad approach. If you want to turn money into publicity, then giving locally to high profile causes is optimal. EA discourages both in favor of more global, more impactful causes.
dc-programmer 4y ago
Maybe it works if folks make a clear eyed appraisal of what the salient issues are. But once the biggest issues facing humanity were identified as AI or the sun exploding and not climate change and wealth inequality, it was game over

Is it a bad thing?

by mikkqu 4y ago

Is it a bad thing?

Is it a bad thing that people can convince themselves that whatever they do to make a lot of money is ethical as long as they buy some mosquito nets afterward? I can see some potential issues.

tfigment 4y ago
Felix Salmon on Slate Money podcast this past weekend suggest that its still net positive given alternative is those people don't even try to make world better. More nuanced than that but my take on the position.
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  Effective altruism sounds like choosing between destroying the enviroment and destroying the enviroment with some greenwashing on top. In my mind, the movement amounts to PR to make excessive riches and excessive political influence palatable.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  What if the alternative might be someone says “no, this is a bridge too far for me” and just doesn’t do something?
eddsh1994 4y ago
> whatever they do to make a lot of money is ethical as long as they buy some mosquito nets afterward EA doesn't support this. It's absolutely not okay to do immoral things to make money and even things like Earning to Give via legit quant roles is and was pretty hotly debated.
- p10jkle 4y ago
  But what in the philosophy of EA really disallows it? In a utilitarian model, if I can do a lot of good by doing some bad (eg, steal from crypto investors and give the money to AI safety research), what did I do wrong? I appreciate that this can discredit EA and hurt their efforts, but this is a short-termist concern; in the long run, the AI research might end up being more important than the transient reputational damage. Furthermore, what if there's only a 5% chance of being caught doing something immoral? Then, in expectation, the positive impact is even higher. It's all very well to pay lip service to 'common sense morality' but it doesn't seem to fit into the actual theology of EA, and this is what fanatics are most likely to follow.
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    > But what in the philosophy of EA really disallows it Because most people who are willing to donate x% of their salary to charity tends to be decent people? Apart from that, there's tons of fundermental EA posts and writings that talk about how EA cannot be an 'ends justify the means' philosophy to donating. Sadly this SBF shit has really corrupted the core message which is to be skeptical of charities and view them like investments, picking the best one for QALY per $, and valuing all lives equally. I don't even like the futurist side of EA because I personally can't put the value of a hypothetical person above someone who's sick today and focus on global health & animal welfare. Honestly the core point of EA is imo very hard to discredit aside from longtermism.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      > There's tons of fundermental EA posts and writings that talk about how EA cannot be an 'ends justify the means' philosophy to donating. This is at odds with its core adoption of utilitarianism, which is the movement's fundamental justification. Utilitarianism is sort of textbook "sounds nice on paper, works crappy in practice" outcome.
      - eddsh1994 4y ago
        That's because they're not the same thing and all the press EA has recently received is completely butchering the much more nuanced message. It's covered briefly here https://www.effectivealtruism.org/faqs-criticism-objections https://www.effectivealtruism.org/faqs-criticism-objections
        tomrod 4y ago
        Pushback: the press has gotten this correct, and EA's attempts at distinguishing itself as something else have failed.
        eddsh1994 4y ago
        How can the press be correct about what something is, when that something has since its inception been both vocally and actively different? Even going back to Singers books that sort of kicked this all off its specifically said to be different to utilitarianism. Most advocates of EA say they're not utilitarian. I'm saying I'm not utilitarian. EA organizations actions are clearly not utilitarian in general. I don't really know how to defend EA as not Utilitarian beyond that, except saying take a look at some EA-based books or blog posts that aren't from the last month and decide for yourself!
- chrchang523 4y ago
  People are not forced to treat EA as an all-or-nothing package. If some of their claims are more convincing than others, and acceptance of only the more-convincing claims leads to SBF-like behavior with much-higher-than-background probability, it is important to strengthen some arguments, and/or withdraw community support for ideas that are currently too unsafe in practice.
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    I agree with this. I think there are two sides of EA - the futurist utilitarian viewpoint and the rational QALY/$ viewpoint. I'm a believer of the latter, but do worry because this is boring (malaria nets and deworming) the former is the only one people hear of or see even if it's a minority group.
- zestyping 4y ago
  [This has been moved to a top-level comment.]
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    What enormous damage has it caused? I say this as someone who took the Earning to Give path from 80,000 hours and happily donate to healthcare charities suggested by Givewell via Giving What We Can. My wife took the other path and is a postdoc at Stanford working on medical research with an EA focus (both in her field and on replication crisis in medicine). I'm pretty in this space so to speak, albeit only in a small way.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Tiktaalik 4y ago
Feels like the same logic all over again as when we had tyrant kings sending out their peasants to get killed in a field in order to win them more lands and wealth, then dumping their fortune into building a cathedral to try to buy their way into heaven.

grebulon 4y ago

I think so. The way I see it, effective altruism is a dangerous trend because it can very quickly go into the 'ends justify the means' territory.' In the case of SBF, if he essentially stole from a bunch of retail investors, and then went about doing altruism (this is not yet verified, of course) did he ultimately create a net positive? That only works if the investors in FTX did not lose out, which they did. Anything that goes into the 'ends justifies the means' territory ends up badly. Sometimes immediately, sometimes over time, but always.

MarkPNeyer 4y ago
Can you name some notion of “good” that doesn’t run the risk of going into “ends justify the means” territory?
- phkahler 4y ago
  Offering to help a stranger that seems to be in need.
- thazework 4y ago
  Bartleby
mc32 4y ago
From the horse’s mouth: “Ya. Hehe. I [SBF] had to be. It’s what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those guys who get fucked by it, by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.” https://www.gawker.com/money/sam-bankman-fried-is-so-stupid-its-incredible https://www.gawker.com/money/sam-bankman-fried-is-so-stupid-...
eddsh1994 4y ago
> and then went about doing altruism He did donate and fund many people through his FTX Foundation and donations via Giving What We Can. I know this because 1) people were funded with real money, even if some people who have not received money yet are of course screwed and 2) I did some voluntary data analysis work for some EA orgs and saw figures, SBF donated.

HarryHirsch 4y ago

The rich man who came to Jesus asking him what he should do knew that too much money was a bad thing. He followed all the commandments but felt that it wasn't enough.

lordnacho 4y ago

Yes. You're not just cleaning your own conscience but also your image in the minds of other people. It's basically a license to be a charming scoundrel. Everything good you do can be balanced by some vice of yours, and that's how we get powerful people abusing their employees and other relations. The MO is not new, you might have heard of the Sacklers donating to art. Should it buy them any sympathy for what they've done? Doubt it. If you want to do good things, do good things. As soon as you do a good thing and get publicity for it, I'm going to think you're buying publicity. I think there's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm about this.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
If you're after good publicity, then EA is a spectacularly bad approach. If you want to turn money into publicity, then giving locally to high profile causes is optimal. EA discourages both in favor of more global, more impactful causes.

dc-programmer 4y ago

Maybe it works if folks make a clear eyed appraisal of what the salient issues are. But once the biggest issues facing humanity were identified as AI or the sun exploding and not climate change and wealth inequality, it was game over