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Opposition to Effective Altruism

ahhell

Philosopher
Joined
Feb 2, 2017
Messages
8,683
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.
 
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.

Here's another site:

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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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