But I basically think effective altruism would be served really well if it just stuck to issues where the risk-reward calculations have strong confidence levels and assumptions that are largely accepted by everyone.
There’s still a comparison to be done among the issues where you have like greater than 70% or greater than 90% confidence on the risk-reward calculations and you still need to find the most effective way to be helpful constrained to a set of those issues.
neolthrowaway on
!ping ALTRUISM
DFjorde on
The idea of effective altruism doesn’t need a leader or organization. It’s just a pretty simple moral application of utilitarianism that encourages people to live their ethics.
I have no idea what happened to the organization though. The movement was a cool idea, but I didn’t really pay attention to what they were doing. A few years later they popped up again but focused on the apocalypse?
AmericanPurposeMag on
SS:
Yascha goes into the the aftermath of the Sam Bankman Fried controversy regarding effective altruism in this longform article. As of now, the opponents of effective altruism argue that the immoral actions of its most prominent advocate(s) reveal a deeper rot at the core of the philosophy. The defenders of effective altruism argue that we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, condemning an insightful moral outlook for the unfortunate circumstance of being championed by somebody who turned out to be a crook.
Yascha says the truth, lies somewhere in between. To reject effective altruism because SBF is a fraud is far too simple. And yet, SBF’s fall from grace helps to illustrate some (though not all) of the fundamental shortcomings of effective altruism.
Yascha goes into how effective altruism went wrong from intrinsic human psychology, problems of prediction, providentialism, and perhaps most of all, the hubris. Later in the article, Yascha says:
*But none of this is a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Effective altruists are right that people spend billions of dollars on charitable contributions every year. It is true that much of that money goes to building new gyms at fancy universities or upgrading local cat shelters. And it is hard to argue with the idea that it would, insofar as possible, be better to direct donors’ altruistic instincts to more impactful endeavors, potentially saving the lives of thousands of people.*
gritsal on
Cut out the weirdo shit about AI and how the number of shrimp gives them a surprising moral weight and get back to their roots of funding shockingly cheap global health interventions.
5 Comments
Only skimmed the article.
But I basically think effective altruism would be served really well if it just stuck to issues where the risk-reward calculations have strong confidence levels and assumptions that are largely accepted by everyone.
There’s still a comparison to be done among the issues where you have like greater than 70% or greater than 90% confidence on the risk-reward calculations and you still need to find the most effective way to be helpful constrained to a set of those issues.
!ping ALTRUISM
The idea of effective altruism doesn’t need a leader or organization. It’s just a pretty simple moral application of utilitarianism that encourages people to live their ethics.
I have no idea what happened to the organization though. The movement was a cool idea, but I didn’t really pay attention to what they were doing. A few years later they popped up again but focused on the apocalypse?
SS:
Yascha goes into the the aftermath of the Sam Bankman Fried controversy regarding effective altruism in this longform article. As of now, the opponents of effective altruism argue that the immoral actions of its most prominent advocate(s) reveal a deeper rot at the core of the philosophy. The defenders of effective altruism argue that we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, condemning an insightful moral outlook for the unfortunate circumstance of being championed by somebody who turned out to be a crook.
Yascha says the truth, lies somewhere in between. To reject effective altruism because SBF is a fraud is far too simple. And yet, SBF’s fall from grace helps to illustrate some (though not all) of the fundamental shortcomings of effective altruism.
Yascha goes into how effective altruism went wrong from intrinsic human psychology, problems of prediction, providentialism, and perhaps most of all, the hubris. Later in the article, Yascha says:
*But none of this is a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Effective altruists are right that people spend billions of dollars on charitable contributions every year. It is true that much of that money goes to building new gyms at fancy universities or upgrading local cat shelters. And it is hard to argue with the idea that it would, insofar as possible, be better to direct donors’ altruistic instincts to more impactful endeavors, potentially saving the lives of thousands of people.*
Cut out the weirdo shit about AI and how the number of shrimp gives them a surprising moral weight and get back to their roots of funding shockingly cheap global health interventions.