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> Effective altruism as distinct from what? Well, all of the rest of us, presumably—the ineffective and un-altruistic That's exactly right. All those ineffecti
by bambax 3y ago
> Effective altruism as distinct from what? Well, all of the rest of us, presumably—the ineffective and un-altruistic
That's exactly right. All those ineffective doctors risking their lives being parachuted in the jungle or working in war zones, they're losers! And the bankers in their private jets, those are the altruists!
EA is a thought experiment in putting morals upside-down. It's ridiculous; what's fascinating is that it almost worked.
We have to thank SBF for having shown the world what EA actually is. A sinister joke.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoSBF also has very publicly very strange set of ideals. He believed that almost any amount of risk is good as long as he can convince himself that it’s somehow “morally net positive”
- sanderjd 3y agoI mean, when the concept of "effective altruism" first came onto my radar, when GiveWell came onto the scene, it was very clear what it meant to be distinct from: charities that use barely any of the funds they raise on their core charitable work. Those charities were "altruistic", but also ineffective, so the idea was, let's keep the altruism, but improve the effectiveness. This was then and still is a very good idea! But then it's like that good but humble mission wasn't enough for a lot of the people interested in this, and they (in my view) sort of disappeared into a black hole of inscrutable philosophizing.