Opposition to Effective Altruism

[ahhell]

I don't get it get why some folks just don't seem to like the idea. Sure, I understand disagreement with methodology. Figuring out what charity is most cost effective isn't always straight forward. Mosquito nets save X number of lives, sure that pretty straight forward but education extends and improves quality of life but it not exactly a straight line or even all that easily quantifiable. So, sure, how you decide what's more cost effective is not easy and easy to criticize but some folks seem to think the whole notion is some sort of sham. Shouldn't we try to figure what the most effective way to spend on causes is? Partly fed by Sam Bankman Freed I'm sure.

 

[theprestige]

First we should probably try to figure out who exactly you're arguing against, and what exactly they're arguing.

 

[ahhell]

Here are some examples of the criticism, which all seem like basically "Its not perfect and its hard to get right" to me.

• Effective altruism asserts that there is a single correct thing to do in any situation. It paints decisions as black and white when the world is messy and complex.
• Effective altruism isn’t sustainable as it assumes that charity is the solution and that we can ‘give’ our way out of the problems that we have helped to create.
• Sometimes it is impossible to know in advance how important a donation will turn out to be.
• Effective altruism does not address broken value systems, debt, imperialism, corruption, and power inequality. At the end of the day, effective altruism doesn’t change the status quo and fails to call for radical change in the world. It simply makes a broken system a little bit better.
• Since many people are driven by emotion when donating to charity, pushing them to be more judicious might backfire. Overly analytical donors might act with so much self-control that they end up giving less to charity.
• Effective altruism is akin to charitable imperialism by claiming the moral high ground in giving decisions and weighing causes and beneficiaries against one another. As such, it incites a more concentrated form of giving where ‘the experts’ decide where money goes instead of individual donors.

Effective Altruism: Arguments For and Against - Social Good Stuff

Effective altruism is built upon the simple but profound idea: that we can do much more to help others (i.e. save many more lives) if we simply take a more objective and rational approach to what we do with our abilities, time, and money. Is effective altruism a new form of philanthropy? Is it...

socialgoodstuff.com

Here's another site:

Why effective altruism is not effective - ABC Religion & Ethics

Effective altruism focuses on giving in a way that undermines its own effectiveness. In order to appeal to more people, it adopts an individualistic consumerist frame which cannot help but foreclose political means of solving problems. Its distinctive commitment to the logic of individualist...

www.abc.net.au

It all just seems like special pleading to me. There also seem to be some high end philosophical arguments against that I'm not qualified to address, probably don't understand, and seem like sophistry. Seem to amount to consequentialism and utilitarism are not correct or something.

 

[Olmstead]

Well, the definition of Effective Altruism sounds like a bunch of meaningless waffle invented to make rich people feel good about themselves, so maybe start by explaining why it's a useful concept at all.

I want my money to save the most kitties is something a child can come up with.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Show me a proponent of effective altruism actually doing something altruistic.
What the idea has morphed into is funding pet projects of settling other planets and building global-governing AI in 100-1000 years instead of doing what you can, right here, right now.
What are the big public figures calling themselves Effective Altruists doing to stop Climate Change?

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Effective Altruism: The latest wheeze invented by rich people to give themselves a pat on the back for pretending to do good while not doing anything good.

At least Al Capone went so far as to fund soup kitchens.

 

[Lithrael]

If effective altruism means 'check charity navigator and also try not to donate to scam personal fundraisers (you're not in Gaza! you're in Ohio) or to real personal fundraisers of people who haven't tried applying for hospital billing charity yet' that is, the words it's made up of, great idea, why criticise it?

If it means 'let a big company handle the vetting for you' I can already just pick a very big very good charity on CN to do that.

If effective altruism means 'give only to private megaprojects that say they will save humanity' or something, not so much.

 

[dudalb]

Just check out the charity you are considering giving money to before you actually give them the money.

 

[dirtywick]

as a recall it was a term really put into the discourse in many interviews with samwell bankman friedman for why it’s ok that he has so much money and how great of a guy he was. and it turns out he was just committing fraud the whole time and is now in prison.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

IMHO, even if someone tried to make it actually mean something altruistic, it would just boil down to the Fallacy Of Relative Privation.

Plus, as I like to point out whenever something comes up to the effect of "why care about X when you could care about saving the world", the thing is, saving the world is the easiest hobby in the world. Nobody expects you to actually succeed, and there is no time limit. One can do the bare minimum, or even nothing at all, for a decade and nobody would come ask, "well, are we all saved yet? Hurry up."

 

[ahhell]

as a recall it was a term really put into the discourse in many interviews with samwell bankman friedman for why it’s ok that he has so much money and how great of a guy he was. and it turns out he was just committing fraud the whole time and is now in prison.

Maybe so but before it became that it was, about getting the most bang for your charity dollar and getting evidence that the charity is actually working. I've long thought some of the opposition was folks who were worried that there pet cause wasn't particularly effective at anything useful. Any rate, I think it's just one more thing given a bad rap by its more extreme adherents.

Maybe we need another term to mean, caring about how effective your altruism really is.

 

[ahhell]

Show me a proponent of effective altruism actually doing something altruistic.
What the idea has morphed into is funding pet projects of settling other planets and building global-governing AI in 100-1000 years instead of doing what you can, right here, right now.
What are the big public figures calling themselves Effective Altruists doing to stop Climate Change?

Peter Singer.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

since we can't ask animals and plants what they think, Singer's Altruism is mostly theoretical.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

as a recall it was a term really put into the discourse in many interviews with samwell bankman friedman for why it’s ok that he has so much money and how great of a guy he was. and it turns out he was just committing fraud the whole time and is now in prison.

But Sam Bankman-Fried was committing fraud in order to make as much money as possible in order to give it all away to fund stuff like AI research and pandemic research, either of which might pay off long in the future by averting some disaster that might otherwise cost a billion lives. So that's ...umm ...fine. Right? A one-in-a-million shot at saving a billion future lives is the same as saving a thousand lives right now. Says Effective Altruism.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Maybe so but before it became that it was, about getting the most bang for your charity dollar and getting evidence that the charity is actually working. I've long thought some of the opposition was folks who were worried that there pet cause wasn't particularly effective at anything useful. Any rate, I think it's just one more thing given a bad rap by its more extreme adherents.

Maybe we need another term to mean, caring about how effective your altruism really is.

But that's why I called it the Fallacy Of Relative Privation. Sure, checking that a charity isn't a scam is just sane, but when one starts ranking what causes you shouldn't care about, because you could care about a grander cause instead, that is literally the textbook version of that fallacy. Many people doing small improvements in lots of very different areas can add up to a big cumulative effect.

Like, even if we're talking about animals, lots of people supporting the local pet rescue or fostering stray kittens can make a bigger total difference to a lot of little animals than saving oneself for big popular causes like saving the polar bears.

The same applies to humans. If we all saved our contributions for stuff like becoming a multi-planet civilisation... well, I'm sure the local homeless will be understanding that THEIR problems deserve no support, compared to that big cause

 

[ahhell]

But Sam Bankman-Fried was committing fraud in order to make as much money as possible in order to give it all away to fund stuff like AI research and pandemic research, either of which might pay off long in the future by averting some disaster that might otherwise cost a billion lives. So that's ...umm ...fine. Right? A one-in-a-million shot at saving a billion future lives is the same as saving a thousand lives right now. Says Effective Altruism.

Or he was just a fraud and most proponents of effective altruism wouldn't go done that route. Sure, there are some folks that take it to the extreme of, do whatever you need to make as much money as possible to then spend on charity but that's a bit like saying all feminism is the SCUM manifesto and the aquatic ape theory.

 

[ahhell]

But that's why I called it the Fallacy Of Relative Privation. Sure, checking that a charity isn't a scam is just sane, but when one starts ranking what causes you shouldn't care about, because you could care about a grander cause instead, that is literally the textbook version of that fallacy. Many people doing small improvements in lots of very different areas can add up to a big cumulative effect.

Like, even if we're talking about animals, lots of people supporting the local pet rescue or fostering stray kittens can make a bigger total difference to a lot of little animals than saving oneself for big popular causes like saving the polar bears.

The same applies to humans. If we all saved our contributions for stuff like becoming a multi-planet civilisation... well, I'm sure the local homeless will be understanding that THEIR problems deserve no support, compared to that big cause

Checking charity navigator is a form of effective altruism. Accounting for diminishing returns is also effective altruism. I suppose it could be ranking causes by what you shouldn't care about, I do that and don't give to any charity that is about "raising awareness" rather than doing something about the thing they want us to be aware of. It is also looking at different charities and deciding to give to one that actually has metrics for success, low overhead costs, and where my dollar will do the most good. It's also giving money directly to food banks rather than donating food. They can buy exactly what they need and get more of it for the same dollar than I can.

Its seems like folks that really have a negative attitude about effective altruism really want it to a much narrower thing than proponents want it to be.

Sam Bank Man Freed's results certainly weren't effective altruism if you take the words literally.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Again, I'm certainly not objecting to your looking for low overhead or success metrics. I just called that "just sane." I don't even think it needs a special name.

 

[dirtywick]

But Sam Bankman-Fried was committing fraud in order to make as much money as possible in order to give it all away to fund stuff like AI research and pandemic research, either of which might pay off long in the future by averting some disaster that might otherwise cost a billion lives. So that's ...umm ...fine. Right? A one-in-a-million shot at saving a billion future lives is the same as saving a thousand lives right now. Says Effective Altruism.

if he gave away any money, he was also buying ferraris and properties in the islands

problem is when the give the money away part never comes. to me it’s just the rich ego saying they know best how to spend the money, and somehow that ends up being spend it on themselves

 

[dirtywick]

Checking charity navigator is a form of effective altruism. Accounting for diminishing returns is also effective altruism. I suppose it could be ranking causes by what you shouldn't care about, I do that and don't give to any charity that is about "raising awareness" rather than doing something about the thing they want us to be aware of. It is also looking at different charities and deciding to give to one that actually has metrics for success, low overhead costs, and where my dollar will do the most good. It's also giving money directly to food banks rather than donating food. They can buy exactly what they need and get more of it for the same dollar than I can.

Its seems like folks that really have a negative attitude about effective altruism really want it to a much narrower thing than proponents want it to be.

Sam Bank Man Freed's results certainly weren't effective altruism if you take the words literally.

hopefully he is sam bank man never freed