I was surprised by the weakness of this article, regardless the potential absurdities of parts of EA.
Why does The Economist consider this the most important issue this week, in a world of complex problems, to splash its first leader on (and more than one page long too)?
Why would a movement which started as nerds buying mosquito nets to stop malaria be "a bunch [of] post hoc justifications for bad behaviour"? You say this like it's an established fact or at least a common argument, yet I've never heard it before.
I don't know. Lots of movements lose their way. I just know that every time it comes up, the story is that some nerd with a lot of big ideas ended up getting carried away and causing a bunch of harm. The article brings up Sam Bankman-Fried, for instance. But you could also look at the obvious scam that WorldCoin was. Or look at all of the preventable respiratory illnesses which are being caused by the datacenter buildout, and the corresponding mantra re: we have to go fast so AI is smart enough to cure diseases.
If you wanna do good in the world, you can't just aim a bunch of money at a goal and expect the good to happen, you gotta get your hands dirty and course correct when your original plan turns out to be more harmful than helpful. I'm sure there are a lot of good intentions in there, but from the outside it's looking like the supposed rationality has been compromised by greed at the expense of the supposed altruism. As expressions of altruism go, EA just doesn't seem very effective.
A big part of EA is earning to give, i.e. making the big bucks at Torture Nexus, Inc. so you can buy more mosquito nets than you could as an EMT or whatever. It’s not hard to see how this can excuse some pretty terrible behavior, especially if you never actually get around to the buying mosquito nets part.
> especially if you never actually get around to the buying mosquito nets part
Or instead get brain-wormed into giving all your torment nexus dollars to "ai safety" cult that tells you that you're helping to prevent the endless torture of all sentient minds that could ever exist in the entire universe.
Hubbard proved that you can create an effective cult out of bad science fiction-- perhaps it should be surprising that it took so long for someone to improve on the design...
Also, all the bad things you did at Torment Nexus Inc... They get a head start on whatever good things you do with the money. Even if the cult is effective, it's playing catch-up.
Not to disagree about the dangers of dangling large amounts of money in front of people that happen to be earmarked for good causes, because that is exactly what went wrong in the case of Sam Bankman-Fried, but:
In the past, the community made the mistake of becoming too closely associated with “earning to give”. Many people involved in effective altruism still think this is a good strategy for some people, particularly those who have a good personal fit for high-paying careers. But donating to charity is not the only way to have a large impact. Many people can do even better by using their careers to help others more directly. Many people in the community do both.
I can't answer your question as to why, but the only person that has ever tried to convince me to consider effective altruism was in charge of marketing for the New Zealand Taxpayer's Union (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Taxpayers%27_Union" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Taxpayers%27_Union). Even at the time (without knowing much about EA) it seemed immediately clear that this person was essentially 'ethics washing'.
wodow · · focus · HN ↗
Why does The Economist consider this the most important issue this week, in a world of complex problems, to splash its first leader on (and more than one page long too)?
__MatrixMan__ · · focus · HN ↗
> Actually, if you think real hard about it, we're the good guys
--the bad guys
The economist likes it because it resembles what their target audience tells themselves so they can sleep at night.
strken · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
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__MatrixMan__ · · focus · HN ↗
If you wanna do good in the world, you can't just aim a bunch of money at a goal and expect the good to happen, you gotta get your hands dirty and course correct when your original plan turns out to be more harmful than helpful. I'm sure there are a lot of good intentions in there, but from the outside it's looking like the supposed rationality has been compromised by greed at the expense of the supposed altruism. As expressions of altruism go, EA just doesn't seem very effective.
Loquebantur · · focus · HN ↗
The claims made there are beyond absurd and based on a remarkable absence of anything resembling reason.
That's echoed by a surprising amount of people here.
lux-lux-lux · · focus · HN ↗
nullc · · focus · HN ↗
Or instead get brain-wormed into giving all your torment nexus dollars to "ai safety" cult that tells you that you're helping to prevent the endless torture of all sentient minds that could ever exist in the entire universe.
Hubbard proved that you can create an effective cult out of bad science fiction-- perhaps it should be surprising that it took so long for someone to improve on the design...
__MatrixMan__ · · focus · HN ↗
ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
abathologist · · focus · HN ↗
tmnvix · · focus · HN ↗