Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?
by concordDance on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @06:15AM
(#33621410)
> I don't like the EA people either.
Do you actually know any? The ones I know in real life are wonderful people. Intelligent, caring and hard working.
Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?
by npteljes on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @02:57PM
(#33629580)
I'm a bit ashamed because of the wording, I don't actually know any, not even online. I only have experience with the expression of the ideas, gathered from various websites.
Re:The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?
by throwaway290 on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @06:33AM
(#33621563)
If it is about not giving money to scammers and supporting vetted trusted charities only, sure. That seems like a basic thing most people following the money and aware about how the world works would do naturally.
The problem is that effective altruism seems to be pure utilitarianism in disguise. That philosophy is to me intuitively messed up. (See The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and similar thought experiments.)
People use EA in place of actually defining their philosophy, either because of laziness, or hubris, or they don't want you to know what it is, or they themselves are scared to look deeply into what it is because it would cause them to recoil.
I unironically think this. In Hungary where I live, if you don't care about these things much but still want to contribute somewhat to society by charity, the first lines of contact will mostly be crooks that feed on goodwill. There will be beggars, organized into groups, charities that don't exist or have such an overhead that only a single percent goes to the actual cause, corporations that take your donation and then boast with the amount as if they were the ones giving it, and charities that are popular but are actually fronts for ideologies, or churches, and frauds like people collecting clothes for the poor, only to sell them abroad. These entities grind up a large amount of goodwill, while producing little or negative value for mankind. So yes - the altruism of the people donating to entities like this does fuck-all, while I imagine that if someone researches a bit, they will be more likely to give to entities that contribute more.
With that being said, I don't like the EA people either. But the concept is valid.