Unsure if there is normally a thread for putting only semi-interesting news articles, but here is a recently posted news article by Wired that seems.… rather inflammatory toward Effective Altruism. I have not read the article myself yet, but a quick skim confirms the title is not only to get clickbait anger clicks, the rest of the article also seems extremely critical of EA, transhumanism, and Rationality.
I am going to post it here, though I am not entirely sure if getting this article more clicks is a good thing, so if you have no interest in reading it maybe don’t click it so we don’t further encourage inflammatory clickbait tactics.
I did a non-in-depth reading of the article during my lunch break, and found it to be of lower quality than I would have predicted.
I am open to an alternative interpretation of the article, but most of it seems very critical of the Effective Altruism movement on the basis of “calculating expected values for the impact on peoples lives is a bad method to gauge the effectiveness of aid, or how you are impacting peoples lives.”
The article begins by establishing that many medicines have side effects. Since some of these side effects are undesirable, the author suggests, though they do not state explicitly, that the medicine may also be undesirable if the side effect is bad enough. They go on to suggest that Givewell, and other EA efforts at aid are not very aware of the side effects of their efforts, and that the efforts may therefore do more harm than good. The author does not stoop so low as to actually provide evidence of this, or even make any explicit claims that could be checked or contradicted, but merely suggests that givewell does not do a good job of this.
This is the less charitable part of my interpretation (no pun intended), but I feel the author spends a lot of the article constantly suggesting that trying to be altruistic, especially in an organized or systematic way, is ineffective, maybe harmful and generally not worth the effort. Mostly the author does this by suggesting anecdotal stories of their investigations into charity, and how they feel much wiser now.
The author then moves on to their association of SBF with Effective Altruism, going so far as to say: “Sam Bankman-Fried is the perfect prophet of EA, the epitome of its moral bankruptcy.” In general, the author goes on to give a case for how SBF is the classic utilitarian villain, justifying his immoral acts through oh-so esoteric calculations of improving good around the world on net.
The author goes on to lay out a general criticism of Effective Altruism as relying on arbitrary utilitarian measures of moral value, such as what counts as a life saved. The author suggests Effective Altruism has become popular because Billionaires like how it makes a straightforward case for converting wealth into moral good, and generally attempts to undermine this premise.
The author is generally extremely critical of EA, and any effort at organized charity, and suggests that the best alternative to EA (or utilitarian moral reasoning in general, I presume) is the following:
the “dearest test.” When you have some big call to make, sit down with a person very dear to you—a parent, partner, child, or friend—and look them in the eyes. Say that you’re making a decision that will affect the lives of many people, to the point that some strangers might be hurt. Say that you believe that the lives of these strangers are just as valuable as anyone else’s. Then tell your dearest, “I believe in my decisions, enough that I’d still make them even if one of the people who could be hurt was you.”
Or you can do the “mirror test.” Look into the mirror and describe what you’re doing that will affect the lives of other people. See whether you can tell yourself, with conviction, that you’re willing to be one of the people who is hurt or dies because of what you’re now deciding. Be accountable, at least, to yourself.
Which I suppose is fine, but I think this reveals the author is primarily concerned about their personal role or responsibility in causing positive or negative moral events, and that the author has very little regard for a consequentialist view of the actual state of reality. Unfortunately, the author does very little do directly engage in dialogue about moral values, and makes the assumption throughout the entire article that everyone does, or at least should, share their own moral values.
The author finishes the article with an anecdote of their friend, who they suggest is a better example of being an altruist since they fly out to an island themselves, where they provide direct aid with water stations, and the direct accountability and lack of billionaires demonstrates how selfless and good he is.
I don’t know who this author is, but I get the feeling they are very proud of this article, and they should surely congratulate themselves on spending their time, and the time of their readers so well.
TL;DR All in all, I think this article can best be summarized by honestly expressing that I feel I wasted my time reading it, and writing this summary. I considered deleting my post on this article, so that I would not risk others also wasting their time on it, but I will leave this summary up so that they can at least waste less time on this article.
Unsure if there is normally a thread for putting only semi-interesting news articles, but here is a recently posted news article by Wired that seems.… rather inflammatory toward Effective Altruism. I have not read the article myself yet, but a quick skim confirms the title is not only to get clickbait anger clicks, the rest of the article also seems extremely critical of EA, transhumanism, and Rationality.
I am going to post it here, though I am not entirely sure if getting this article more clicks is a good thing, so if you have no interest in reading it maybe don’t click it so we don’t further encourage inflammatory clickbait tactics.
https://www.wired.com/story/deaths-of-effective-altruism/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
I did a non-in-depth reading of the article during my lunch break, and found it to be of lower quality than I would have predicted.
I am open to an alternative interpretation of the article, but most of it seems very critical of the Effective Altruism movement on the basis of “calculating expected values for the impact on peoples lives is a bad method to gauge the effectiveness of aid, or how you are impacting peoples lives.”
The article begins by establishing that many medicines have side effects. Since some of these side effects are undesirable, the author suggests, though they do not state explicitly, that the medicine may also be undesirable if the side effect is bad enough. They go on to suggest that Givewell, and other EA efforts at aid are not very aware of the side effects of their efforts, and that the efforts may therefore do more harm than good. The author does not stoop so low as to actually provide evidence of this, or even make any explicit claims that could be checked or contradicted, but merely suggests that givewell does not do a good job of this.
This is the less charitable part of my interpretation (no pun intended), but I feel the author spends a lot of the article constantly suggesting that trying to be altruistic, especially in an organized or systematic way, is ineffective, maybe harmful and generally not worth the effort. Mostly the author does this by suggesting anecdotal stories of their investigations into charity, and how they feel much wiser now.
The author then moves on to their association of SBF with Effective Altruism, going so far as to say: “Sam Bankman-Fried is the perfect prophet of EA, the epitome of its moral bankruptcy.” In general, the author goes on to give a case for how SBF is the classic utilitarian villain, justifying his immoral acts through oh-so esoteric calculations of improving good around the world on net.
The author goes on to lay out a general criticism of Effective Altruism as relying on arbitrary utilitarian measures of moral value, such as what counts as a life saved. The author suggests Effective Altruism has become popular because Billionaires like how it makes a straightforward case for converting wealth into moral good, and generally attempts to undermine this premise.
The author is generally extremely critical of EA, and any effort at organized charity, and suggests that the best alternative to EA (or utilitarian moral reasoning in general, I presume) is the following:
Which I suppose is fine, but I think this reveals the author is primarily concerned about their personal role or responsibility in causing positive or negative moral events, and that the author has very little regard for a consequentialist view of the actual state of reality. Unfortunately, the author does very little do directly engage in dialogue about moral values, and makes the assumption throughout the entire article that everyone does, or at least should, share their own moral values.
The author finishes the article with an anecdote of their friend, who they suggest is a better example of being an altruist since they fly out to an island themselves, where they provide direct aid with water stations, and the direct accountability and lack of billionaires demonstrates how selfless and good he is.
I don’t know who this author is, but I get the feeling they are very proud of this article, and they should surely congratulate themselves on spending their time, and the time of their readers so well.
TL;DR
All in all, I think this article can best be summarized by honestly expressing that I feel I wasted my time reading it, and writing this summary. I considered deleting my post on this article, so that I would not risk others also wasting their time on it, but I will leave this summary up so that they can at least waste less time on this article.