The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? by eyelidlessness on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @11:18PM (#33618783)

The article mentions its philosophical underpinnings: utilitarianism. There’s a wealth of philosophical discussion of its own merits and problems. Reading the article but having been unfamiliar with the “effective altruism” term, I immediately recognized utilitarianism in it and the rest was predictable. It seemed a perfectly good idea to me too for some time, and still does with a slew of caveats.

Giving it a simple name is fine, but it has one. Giving it a manipulative name is, well, one of the potential philosophical problems with utilitarianism.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? by JamesBarney on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @12:37AM (#33619322)

What name is manipulative?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? by polygamous_bat on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @12:57AM (#33619424)

I assume the GP is talking about the name "effective altruism".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? by JamesBarney on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @01:35AM (#33619665)

I don't know what else they should have picked? It seems like a fairly straightforward name for movement that focuses on charity effectiveness. I guess you could call it "effective giving" or something like that but caring about effectiveness is it core differentiating tenant and anything related to altruism/giving/charity is going to sound good.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? by zztop44 on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @05:15AM (#33620945)

I think the argument is that everyone else doing charity/altruism also (ostensibly) cares about effectiveness so it’s only a differentiating tenant if you somehow think your caring about effectiveness is somehow different to everyone else’s.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? by JamesBarney on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @09:39AM (#33623684)

They care about effectiveness in the sense of if you asked if they cared about effectiveness they'd say yes.

They don't care about effectiveness in the sense that they are doing the math on how effective different outreach is, comparing that against other uses of the money, and sharing that with their donors.

I've been to 9-10 charity events and none of them talked about effectiveness in a dollar and cents way like the way givewell does. It's a real change from the status quo.

[ Parent | on HN ]