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As someone who creates data and analysis which get used in setting policy I do find a lot of EA spreadsheet analysis of measured "good" to be very niave to the

As someone who creates data and analysis which get used in setting policy I do find a lot of EA spreadsheet analysis of measured "good" to be very niave to the nature of measurement and classification. That being said, I think this peice is a bit of an overreaction and there seem to be many earnest actors in the EA community really thinking about how they can do good in the world. SBF is very unfortunate for EA, but to jump from him example to saying all EA practitioners care exclusively about the ends over the means is a bit of a leap, imo.

axlee 3y ago
It's just a bunch of privileged armchair humanitarians who never left the confines of their fancy circles, let alone been confronted to the things they're trying to fix. They think they can fix issues better than NGOs which have had boots on the grounds for decades, just because they know python and excel, as if people actually working on humanitarian causes were benevolent r**ards. Of course, it allows for great intellectual masturbation and self-congratulation, as if fixing complex social/ecological issues was just about "cracking a problem" and presenting a neat 12-page PPT presentation, before moving to the next problem. If any of these people actually walked the talk, we'd see a lot more one-way tickets to Africa for them to finally be able to employ their beautiful minds on real problems.
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  The best comment I’ve read in HN for a really long time.
bee_rider 3y ago
For someone outside the space (like me), what’s the big innovation of Effective Altruism? I assume when the rubber hits the road, most people doing big donations have people to look at the effectiveness of that donation. I guess I’m just suspicious of any community or movement that labels itself as “effective,” because it is hard to believe that they were the first ones to think of the idea of not being ineffective, haha.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  It’s not just donations. It’s living your entire life according to “expected value”, or what the maximum “utility” units (utils) can be created through every action and relationship. It’s an extremely inhuman way of living that goes against ethical norms established since the dawn of civilization. Effective altruists are dangerous and you should not be friends with them, hire them, or associate with them at all if you possibly can. They put your wealth and life at risk.
  - kiba 3y ago
    That is silly. People argued about whether cars are good for the environment or whether we should create a walkable society, or policies about climate change, and so forth. They are always arguing about the consequences of their actions. At the end of the day, people don't follow some sort of pure moral philosophy like some sort of platonic ideals.
- Nifty3929 3y ago
  EA seeks to measure and compare altruistic endeavors, however imperfectly. For example, measuring the good created by donating to your kids school, to the 9/11 fund, or to bed nets in Africa. An EA would likely say that the good for society created by donating to your kids' school is less than the good provided by donating the same amount of money to bed nets. They might quantify that in lives saved, such as a $1000 donation to bed nets saving about 1/5th of a life in Africa. But maybe the $1000 donation to the school improves the lives of 100 students by 1% each, or something like that. It really forces us to have hard conversations about how we use our collective effort to help each other, based on more than just feelings in the moment. Feelings are an important part of the end goal, but feelings about some particular intervention are not a good way to evaluate it. We're also forced to be clear about what good we think an intervention will provide, and to whom.
  - low_tech_love 3y ago
    Your answer sums up perfectly why I am so strongly against EA. The idea that you can quantify your donation to bed nets in terms of something so arbitrary as “lives saved”, without taking into account the extremely complex social environment at which that donation is arriving, is completely opposite to my beliefs. It is basically the same as measuring something like “what’s the benefit of an individual vote?” The idea that you really believe that as an EA you are having “harder” conversations and you are more “forced” to be clear about what you do than other non-effective altruists is just baffling to me.

axlee 3y ago

It's just a bunch of privileged armchair humanitarians who never left the confines of their fancy circles, let alone been confronted to the things they're trying to fix. They think they can fix issues better than NGOs which have had boots on the grounds for decades, just because they know python and excel, as if people actually working on humanitarian causes were benevolent r**ards. Of course, it allows for great intellectual masturbation and self-congratulation, as if fixing complex social/ecological issues was just about "cracking a problem" and presenting a neat 12-page PPT presentation, before moving to the next problem. If any of these people actually walked the talk, we'd see a lot more one-way tickets to Africa for them to finally be able to employ their beautiful minds on real problems.

low_tech_love 3y ago
The best comment I’ve read in HN for a really long time.

bee_rider 3y ago

For someone outside the space (like me), what’s the big innovation of Effective Altruism? I assume when the rubber hits the road, most people doing big donations have people to look at the effectiveness of that donation. I guess I’m just suspicious of any community or movement that labels itself as “effective,” because it is hard to believe that they were the first ones to think of the idea of not being ineffective, haha.

monero-xmr 3y ago
It’s not just donations. It’s living your entire life according to “expected value”, or what the maximum “utility” units (utils) can be created through every action and relationship. It’s an extremely inhuman way of living that goes against ethical norms established since the dawn of civilization. Effective altruists are dangerous and you should not be friends with them, hire them, or associate with them at all if you possibly can. They put your wealth and life at risk.
- kiba 3y ago
  That is silly. People argued about whether cars are good for the environment or whether we should create a walkable society, or policies about climate change, and so forth. They are always arguing about the consequences of their actions. At the end of the day, people don't follow some sort of pure moral philosophy like some sort of platonic ideals.
Nifty3929 3y ago
EA seeks to measure and compare altruistic endeavors, however imperfectly. For example, measuring the good created by donating to your kids school, to the 9/11 fund, or to bed nets in Africa. An EA would likely say that the good for society created by donating to your kids' school is less than the good provided by donating the same amount of money to bed nets. They might quantify that in lives saved, such as a $1000 donation to bed nets saving about 1/5th of a life in Africa. But maybe the $1000 donation to the school improves the lives of 100 students by 1% each, or something like that. It really forces us to have hard conversations about how we use our collective effort to help each other, based on more than just feelings in the moment. Feelings are an important part of the end goal, but feelings about some particular intervention are not a good way to evaluate it. We're also forced to be clear about what good we think an intervention will provide, and to whom.
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  Your answer sums up perfectly why I am so strongly against EA. The idea that you can quantify your donation to bed nets in terms of something so arbitrary as “lives saved”, without taking into account the extremely complex social environment at which that donation is arriving, is completely opposite to my beliefs. It is basically the same as measuring something like “what’s the benefit of an individual vote?” The idea that you really believe that as an EA you are having “harder” conversations and you are more “forced” to be clear about what you do than other non-effective altruists is just baffling to me.