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A comment on Effective altruism and the current funding situation. Parent comment

Re:Effective altruism and the current funding situation by Veedrac on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @03:08PM (#31331241)
Apologies if this is curt, but if you think one of the most impactful altruism movements in the world with major focuses in global health and long term outcomes is a joke because they do outreach in odd (but clearly effective) ways, you have missed the point of effective altruism altogether.

You don't get brownie points for how steadfastly you stick to your Overton window. You get brownie points for saving lives.

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Re:Effective altruism and the current funding situation by PragmaticPulp on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @04:00PM (#31331917)
> You don't get brownie points for how steadfastly you stick to your Overton window. You get brownie points for saving lives.

...by distributing copies of rationalist Harry Potter fan fiction?

I agree that charities that save lives are doing good things. That's why I brought up the fact that some of their spending has historically been kind of ludicrously off base.

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Re:Effective altruism and the current funding situation by rcoveson on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @05:54PM (#31333209)
You know Maus[0]? It's a comic book about Disney animals. Isn't that just laughable? Wouldn't teaching such a thing in schools--with the aim of imparting serious lessons--be "ludicrously off base"?

Derision for fan fiction and/or Harry Potter can't be the beginning and end of your argument for why HPMOR isn't a good book to introduce nerdy school kids to a handful of valuable ideas.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus

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Re:Effective altruism and the current funding situation by Veedrac on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @04:56PM (#31332611)
It sounds less stupid when you count the fraction of EA funding and activity that HPMOR was already in the causal chain of. It's not how I'd do outreach, but it's not like the choice was arbitrary.
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Re:Effective altruism and the current funding situation by Recursing on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @05:07PM (#31332742)
Honestly curious, how would you do outreach?
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Re:Effective altruism and the current funding situation by Veedrac on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @06:00PM (#31333262)
I don't know, sorry.
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Re:Effective altruism and the current funding situation by lucaparodi on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @04:15PM (#31332089)
So you're literally basing your entire argument to disqualify a movement with clear and public data about the positive impact that has created on a single $30k grant?
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