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Back in my day effective altruism was mainly about finding charities that aren't essentially scams (way harder than it looks). Scene has apparently moved on to

Back in my day effective altruism was mainly about finding charities that aren't essentially scams (way harder than it looks). Scene has apparently moved on to other things since I followed it a decade or so ago.

wendyshu 4y ago
I guess GiveWell still does that, but I'm not really sure what everyone else in the movement does.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  Givewell is certainly my go to.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Looks good I'll check it out.
- akavi 4y ago
  Dustin Moskovitz's Good Ventures also seems to focus on more "prosaic" issues like medical research/direct cash transfers/animal welfare.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ketzo 4y ago
This is a super-simplified summary, but I think it's generally accurate. The basic thesis of EA is "it is your duty to improve/save as many human lives as you can." At some point, a lot of EAs realized that there were many more future humans than present humans. Once you widen your scope in that way, you start realizing that long-term, catastrophic risks (climate change, nuclear disaster, misaligned AI) would affect a lot more human lives -- billions or trillions more -- than basically anything we could do today. So the logic becomes -- why would I spend time/money on mosquito nets when we need to be securing the literal future of the human race?
- bena 4y ago
  Because we do that with mosquito nets. EA seems like a way to achieve nothing while looking like you're doing everything. No one expects you to fly to Mars tomorrow. And that's true every single day. It's true today. It'll be true tomorrow. It was true yesterday. It was true 10 years ago. It will be true 10 years from now. So if no one really expects you to fully achieve your goal, all you have to do is kinda look like you're trying and that will be good enough for most people. EA takes a good, hard look at all these good intentions and says, "Fuck, this would make a baller ass road". However, if we solve malaria. That's another thing not killing us. Another problem checked off. Like polio. Or smallpox. Colonize Mars? Fucking how? We can't even get the environment on Earth under control. How the living fuck are we going to create an environment on another fucking planet. Much less even get there. So how about we figure out a way to get the garbage out the ocean. On how to scrub the air of CO2. How to manufacture and produce without so many polluting side effects. We keep doing all these smaller things. Put in the work, and one day, we will save all those trillions of potential lives. But it requires putting in the work. Edit: Not saying you believe it. But presenting the counter-argument to EA.
  - rcoveson 4y ago
    Where does this view of EA come from? Hatchet jobs written by TIMES and its ilk? Twitter personalities like Elon Musk who have so much social gravity that people perceive them as the spokesmen of anything they mention that you hadn't heard of before? Google "effective altruism" and the first two results are EA/Giving What We Can and GiveWell. Both of these organizations are meta-charities that help forward money or encourage the forwarding of money to other charities, but most of all... Mosquito nets! The first charitable fund mentioned by EA/Giving What We Can is GiveWell's, and the top recipient of that fund is the Malaria Consortium. I heartily encourage you to read about GiveWell. It's still the heart of EA from the perspective of the less-vocal majority of self-described EAs.
    - stale2002 4y ago
      > Where does this view of EA come from? I''ll answer. I think the view comes from a different, but related group known as "The rationalists". "The rationalists", or less wrongers, fit the bill to a Tee, of all these common criticisms of EA that people are bringing up. And, the reason why this criticism may be misattribute to EA specifically, is because there is a large overlap between the rationalists, and EA. The Rationalists are the ones talking about AI existential risk, and colonizing mars, and all that nonsense.

wendyshu 4y ago

I guess GiveWell still does that, but I'm not really sure what everyone else in the movement does.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago
Givewell is certainly my go to.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Looks good I'll check it out.
akavi 4y ago
Dustin Moskovitz's Good Ventures also seems to focus on more "prosaic" issues like medical research/direct cash transfers/animal welfare.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ketzo 4y ago

This is a super-simplified summary, but I think it's generally accurate. The basic thesis of EA is "it is your duty to improve/save as many human lives as you can." At some point, a lot of EAs realized that there were many more future humans than present humans. Once you widen your scope in that way, you start realizing that long-term, catastrophic risks (climate change, nuclear disaster, misaligned AI) would affect a lot more human lives -- billions or trillions more -- than basically anything we could do today. So the logic becomes -- why would I spend time/money on mosquito nets when we need to be securing the literal future of the human race?

bena 4y ago
Because we do that with mosquito nets. EA seems like a way to achieve nothing while looking like you're doing everything. No one expects you to fly to Mars tomorrow. And that's true every single day. It's true today. It'll be true tomorrow. It was true yesterday. It was true 10 years ago. It will be true 10 years from now. So if no one really expects you to fully achieve your goal, all you have to do is kinda look like you're trying and that will be good enough for most people. EA takes a good, hard look at all these good intentions and says, "Fuck, this would make a baller ass road". However, if we solve malaria. That's another thing not killing us. Another problem checked off. Like polio. Or smallpox. Colonize Mars? Fucking how? We can't even get the environment on Earth under control. How the living fuck are we going to create an environment on another fucking planet. Much less even get there. So how about we figure out a way to get the garbage out the ocean. On how to scrub the air of CO2. How to manufacture and produce without so many polluting side effects. We keep doing all these smaller things. Put in the work, and one day, we will save all those trillions of potential lives. But it requires putting in the work. Edit: Not saying you believe it. But presenting the counter-argument to EA.
- rcoveson 4y ago
  Where does this view of EA come from? Hatchet jobs written by TIMES and its ilk? Twitter personalities like Elon Musk who have so much social gravity that people perceive them as the spokesmen of anything they mention that you hadn't heard of before? Google "effective altruism" and the first two results are EA/Giving What We Can and GiveWell. Both of these organizations are meta-charities that help forward money or encourage the forwarding of money to other charities, but most of all... Mosquito nets! The first charitable fund mentioned by EA/Giving What We Can is GiveWell's, and the top recipient of that fund is the Malaria Consortium. I heartily encourage you to read about GiveWell. It's still the heart of EA from the perspective of the less-vocal majority of self-described EAs.
  - stale2002 4y ago
    > Where does this view of EA come from? I''ll answer. I think the view comes from a different, but related group known as "The rationalists". "The rationalists", or less wrongers, fit the bill to a Tee, of all these common criticisms of EA that people are bringing up. And, the reason why this criticism may be misattribute to EA specifically, is because there is a large overlap between the rationalists, and EA. The Rationalists are the ones talking about AI existential risk, and colonizing mars, and all that nonsense.