Talk:Effective altruism

Pascal's wager
A See Also link to Pascal's wager was just added. While I can see the obvious relevance Pascal's wager has to Roko's Basilisk, it's not clear to me what the relevance of Pascal's wager is to EA. As far as I'm aware, most EAs aren't EAs for religious reasons (ignoring my tongue-in-cheek comparison of EA to a religion itself), and Roko's Basilisk isn't a hot topic in the EA community, so I don't think it's worth including Pascals wager as a see also if it's only based on indirect connections via either of those things.--Greenrd (talk) 14:09, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Both EA and the Wager are mental exercises in maximizing some poorly specified Good Thing by applying logical reasoning to shaky premises. MaillardFillmore (talk) 14:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm unconvinced Roko's basilisk has any relevance to EA. EAs are part of the LessWrongsphere, and tend to deny EY while still behaving as though they believe the ideas (c.f. MIRI not having been completely laughed out of the movement, as would have happened if this inanity wasn't heartily embraced by a pile of them) - to use local jargon, they claim not to believe, but clearly alieve - but I've never seen a more direct connection. Pascal's mugging arguments, however, were openly used by Nick Bostrom to push the MIRI agenda at the EA meet per Dylan Matthews article (a more Singerian EA who was pissed off at the Yudkowskian EAs?) - David Gerard (talk) 15:39, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * It does have relevance. If you re-read Roko's basilisk/Original post, it is clearly talking about existential risk, which is one of the three most prominent EA "causes" that EAs care about - it is not talking about (dis)utility in general, contrary to what the Roko's basilisk article claims. But that's by-the-by because even if it was, EA is still about being practically utilitarian and donating to "the most effective" charities. If a utilitarian is donating to (what they believe to be) "the most effective" charities, they are an effective altruist whether they want to be seen as one or not, as far as I'm concerned - that's really on-point to what the term "effective altruist" is supposed to mean. And it does mean beliefs about what is most effective, not the "truth", because no-one has a crystal ball. So it's very relevant either way - at least, I think the basilisk article should continue to link to the EA article, I'm not sure about the reverse. To be clear, I am not saying that I believe the basilisk idea.--Greenrd (talk) 16:20, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * RB is about existential risk, EA mentions existential risk ... that's "A has X, B has X, therefore A is a notable in regards to B", which I don't think holds at all. Do you have anything more direct relating RB to EA, e.g. discussions in EA circles?
 * Also, I'm not sure the RB article should really link back here - "Effective Altruism" as a buzzword hadn't even been coined then IIRC. Though it is a good example of trying to take the most-effective-altruist thing way too far - David Gerard (talk) 17:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thinking further on this, hmm. EY did push EA super-hard even before it was tagged that and got a lot of LWers into it (which is why MIRI hasn't been laughed out yet). Tricky one - David Gerard (talk) 17:49, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Not much rationality in this article
Looking through the last year of talk discussion it looks like nothing has really changed - this page is a mess of snark and decidedly irrational attacks (a list of comparisons with religion, for instance). Someone ought to take a hatchet job to this page - I would gladly do so, but obviously not until we reach consensus. 129.81.28.193 (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2015 (UTC)


 * User:Greenrd, you still up for the task? - David Gerard (talk) 19:48, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it will be my new year's resolution to do this. I think I've done enough research into EA by now.--Greenrd (talk) 21:09, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It is quite a bit better now, thanks. There is much less snark and it is much less irrational. I would note that the earning to give section sorely needs citations for its contentious claims and original research, and Givewell is now more in favor of funding MIRI/FHI/FLI. But those are separate issues. There is still some snark but it doesn't read like a bad Cracked article :) However, I'd expect this article will need a thorough rewrite anyway due to its structure and layout, which needs to be more intuitive and comprehensive. There are still other problems but it could be a lot worse.24.251.35.159 (talk) 08:04, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Edit rationale
In response to User:Castaigne2's second attempt|attempt to revert edits, on the basis of 'whitewashing' and removal of snark -

I removed a citation that was being abused (the link to the EA forum did not reference the LessWrong subculture, so it was clearly misused whether intentionally or not), I added a link that was relevant (80,000 Hours' opinion on how many people they want to earn to give is clearly relevant in the section about earning to give), I moved some content out of the earning to give section where it seemed out of place, I removed the uncited claim about effective altruists thinking that everyone not in the movement was in fundamental disagreement with effective altruist values as it was uncited and doesn't match the style that effective altruists like to use to proselytize, and I removed the See Also section because it only repeated a reference to Pascal's Wager that was already mentioned in the appropriate subsection of the article (and is only relevant to x-risks, not EA as a whole, so an inappropriate article for see also).

I would appreciate if you could explain how any of this is 'whitewashing', or what snark you consider to be valuable to the article, rather than reverting without explanation or acknowledgement on the talk page. Please refrain from edit warring. TofuTanker (talk) 23:36, 4 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Because the EA subculture as it exists totally originated around MIRI, and pretending it didn't (because thy're a fucking embarrassment) is whitewashing - David Gerard (talk) 01:04, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * User:David Gerard, I don't see any reason to believe your claim that "EA subculture originated around MIRI." The citation that was provided in the article did not back up this claim, don't you agree? If there is to be a section on the origination of EA subculture, it should be properly situated and cited, do you agree with that as well? I did not make any claims about EA subculture - I just removed an unsubstantiated statement. Before making claims of "whitewashing" and other accusations of bad faith, can you lay out the reasons for these claims? Also, is your general silence on 90% of the changes I made an implicit acceptance that they were fine? TofuTanker (talk) 03:19, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Your claim fails to explain why AI risk is even a question in EA and hasn't been laughed out of the building yet - David Gerard (talk) 17:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Ummm... what? Why do you expect me to do that? How is it relevant to anything I said? Can you please stay on topic instead of using this space as your personal soapbox? TofuTanker (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

The term "effective altruism" predates Eliezer's Scope Insensitivity article
The term has been a page on the SL4 Wiki since at least 2003: http://sl4.org/wiki/EffectiveAltruism. MorallyAmbiguous (talk) 17:22, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Nice find! SL4 being of course Yudkowsky's main venue before Overcoming Bias ... so who actually coined it? Has anyone grovelled through the SL4 archives? - David Gerard (talk) 10:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * (Same guy as above, forgot password.) I haven't been able to find earlier uses. Not saying they don't exist, but I think we can at least call this the earliest known use. Eliezer Yudkowsky used the term "rational altruism" on the mailing list in 2002, but I don't know whether he meant the same thing as modern EA. MorallyGrey (talk) 02:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Ping David Gerard. In addition to LessWrong and its predecessors, what do you think of mentioning the Oxford philosophers (MacAskill/Ord), GiveWell, and the utilitarian forum Felicifia under the Origins section? According to the EA Global 2016 Keynote, the current EA movement emerged from a combination of these groups. MorallyGrey (talk) 03:03, 26 February 2018 (UTC)


 * could do, sure. The subculture is really heavily the LW rationalists, though. Admittedly they may just be the noisy bit, but ... - David Gerard (talk) 14:26, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Note to self
Possible citations to add: Bongolian (talk) 04:48, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * https://www.salon.com/2022/08/20/understanding-longtermism-why-this-suddenly-influential-philosophy-is-so/
 * https://www.salon.com/2022/04/30/elon-musk-twitter-and-the-future-his-long-term-vision-is-even-weirder-than-you-think/
 * https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo
 * https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/07/the-dangerous-ideas-of-longtermism-and-existential-risk