Difference between revisions of "Effective altruism"

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
(c/e flow)
Line 3: Line 3:
 
'''Effective altruism''' is a movement to change the world through making carefully-targeted charitable donations - not ''only'' through making carefully-targeted charitable donations, but that is the overwhelming focus.  Although it has a very definite point, in that some "[[charity|charities]]" spend more on the leaders than the people they are supposed to help, direct intervention will almost never solve systemic problems.  Effective Altruism is therefore pushed very hard by [[San Francisco|Bay Area]] [[libertarianism#"Techno-libertarians"|technolibertarians]] who think that the world is set up pretty well and don't really want to see any major social changes towards equality that would diminish their own positions. [[LessWrong]] also pushes the concept heavily, seeing itself as an obvious beneficiary.
 
'''Effective altruism''' is a movement to change the world through making carefully-targeted charitable donations - not ''only'' through making carefully-targeted charitable donations, but that is the overwhelming focus.  Although it has a very definite point, in that some "[[charity|charities]]" spend more on the leaders than the people they are supposed to help, direct intervention will almost never solve systemic problems.  Effective Altruism is therefore pushed very hard by [[San Francisco|Bay Area]] [[libertarianism#"Techno-libertarians"|technolibertarians]] who think that the world is set up pretty well and don't really want to see any major social changes towards equality that would diminish their own positions. [[LessWrong]] also pushes the concept heavily, seeing itself as an obvious beneficiary.
  
The movement of effective altruism does not really exhibit effective altruism in the truest meaning of the words. In practice, it consists of well-off libertarians somehow being pleased about their moral position, donating to carefully selected charities while working ethically questionable jobs. They tend not to question the system that provides the underlying causes to the problems these charities fight against. This is akin to a person who sells firewood and also funds the fire-fighters, never wondering why there is a fire in the middle of the otherwise unheated orphanage.
+
Philosopher [[Peter Singer]] started the idea and buys into it big time, pushing it hard wherever he goes.<ref>http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism.html</ref> However, the Singer version &mdash; which he considers a categorical imperative for pretty much ''every'' comfortable first-world citizen, with the specific aim of systemic changes &mdash; and the observed manifestation are not the same at all. In practice, it consists of well-off libertarians somehow being pleased about their moral position, donating to carefully selected charities while working ethically questionable jobs. They tend not to question the system that provides the underlying causes to the problems these charities fight against. This is akin to a person who sells firewood and also funds the fire-fighters, never wondering why there is a fire in the middle of the otherwise unheated orphanage.
 
 
Philosopher [[Peter Singer]] started the idea and buys into it big time, pushing it hard wherever he goes.<ref>http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism.html</ref> However, the Singer version &mdash; which he considers a categorical imperative for pretty much ''every'' comfortable first-world citizen, with the specific aim of systemic changes &mdash; and the observed manifestation are not the same at all.
 
  
 
The idea of EA is that utilitarianism is true (and you can do arithmetic on it with meaningful results), that all lives (or Quality-Adjusted Life Years) are equivalent (so those poor people in Africa are equivalent to the comfortable first-world donor, which is fine) and that some charities do better at this than others. Thus, it should be theoretically possible to run the numbers and see which is objectively the most effective charity per dollar donated; and to offset the horrible things your job does to people in your own country with charitable donations to other countries. It's like buying "asshole offsets".<ref name=replaceability/>
 
The idea of EA is that utilitarianism is true (and you can do arithmetic on it with meaningful results), that all lives (or Quality-Adjusted Life Years) are equivalent (so those poor people in Africa are equivalent to the comfortable first-world donor, which is fine) and that some charities do better at this than others. Thus, it should be theoretically possible to run the numbers and see which is objectively the most effective charity per dollar donated; and to offset the horrible things your job does to people in your own country with charitable donations to other countries. It's like buying "asshole offsets".<ref name=replaceability/>

Revision as of 12:15, 3 July 2014

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.
Hélder CâmaraWikipedia

Effective altruism is a movement to change the world through making carefully-targeted charitable donations - not only through making carefully-targeted charitable donations, but that is the overwhelming focus. Although it has a very definite point, in that some "charities" spend more on the leaders than the people they are supposed to help, direct intervention will almost never solve systemic problems. Effective Altruism is therefore pushed very hard by Bay Area technolibertarians who think that the world is set up pretty well and don't really want to see any major social changes towards equality that would diminish their own positions. LessWrong also pushes the concept heavily, seeing itself as an obvious beneficiary.

Philosopher Peter Singer started the idea and buys into it big time, pushing it hard wherever he goes.[1] However, the Singer version — which he considers a categorical imperative for pretty much every comfortable first-world citizen, with the specific aim of systemic changes — and the observed manifestation are not the same at all. In practice, it consists of well-off libertarians somehow being pleased about their moral position, donating to carefully selected charities while working ethically questionable jobs. They tend not to question the system that provides the underlying causes to the problems these charities fight against. This is akin to a person who sells firewood and also funds the fire-fighters, never wondering why there is a fire in the middle of the otherwise unheated orphanage.

The idea of EA is that utilitarianism is true (and you can do arithmetic on it with meaningful results), that all lives (or Quality-Adjusted Life Years) are equivalent (so those poor people in Africa are equivalent to the comfortable first-world donor, which is fine) and that some charities do better at this than others. Thus, it should be theoretically possible to run the numbers and see which is objectively the most effective charity per dollar donated; and to offset the horrible things your job does to people in your own country with charitable donations to other countries. It's like buying "asshole offsets".[2]

The trouble is that EA is a mechanism to push the libertarian idea that charity is a replacement for government action or funding. Individual charity has nothing like the funding or effectiveness of concerted government action — but EA sustains the myth that individual charity is the most effective way to help the world. EA proponents will frequently be seen excusing their choice to work completely fucking evil jobs because they're so charitable, and disparaging the foolish people who actually work on the ground at the charity for their ineffectiveness compared to the power of the donors.[2]

The ideas have been around a while, but the current subculture that calls itself Effective Altruism got a big push from LessWrong. Who considered themselves obviously the most effective charity in the world[3] until EA charity guide GiveWell rated donations to them as actually worse for their project (the threat to humanity of Artificial Intelligence) than not donating. GiveWell, unlike LessWrong and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, primarily promotes charities focused on improving health in the developing world. GiveWell's criticism of MIRI argued that MIRI's focus on supposedly trying to save the world and create "Friendly AI" amounted to a form of Pascal's Mugging—promising enormous benefits even though the probability of actually receiving those benefits is tiny.[4][5]

This is not the only example of conflicts within the Effective Altruism movement. For example, reducing wild animal suffering is generally a major branch of the movement.[6] Furthermore, within the Effective Altruism movement, some people have unusual ideas on how to do this. At least one person has advocated destroying nature in order to reduce wild animal suffering.[7] In fact, some members of the Effective Altruism movement identify as negative utilitarianism, meaning that preventing suffering is the only thing that matters. As critics within the Effective Altruism movement have pointed out, negative utilitarianism seems to imply that we should be willing to destroy the entire world to prevent one person from suffering a pinprick.[8]

The Effective Altruists are probably making the world a better place than they would spending all their money on blow. But that doesn't mean you should take seriously their claims of virtue, and particularly not their claims of being an example to emulate.

A complication for this viewpoint is that many members of the EA movement, notably its centres in Berne and Oxford, are left-liberal in political sympathies, not libertarian. Likewise, though some members of the movement have well-paid jobs, other members are debt-ridden students or unemployed.

Footnotes