Re:Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassme...
by senderista on Friday February 03, 2023 @09:35PM
(#34650790)
What’s wrong with fraud if it has positive expected utility? At least if you’re an avowed act utilitarian like SBF.
Re:Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassme...
by bglazer on Friday February 03, 2023 @10:35PM
(#34651175)
Second order effects; good luck raising money once your fraud is exposed.
Re:Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassme...
by ben_w on Saturday February 04, 2023 @05:00AM
(#34653227)
Even with a cold calculations of utility, fraud has the same effect as defection in the Prisoner's Dilemma, and reality is an IPD not a single round, and the winning strategy for that is tit-for-tat.
Re:Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassme...
by HDThoreaun on Saturday February 04, 2023 @12:04PM
(#34655963)
Second and third order effects that result in living in a society that embraces fraud. If you're able to completely cover it up it's a different story, but that's a very dangerous bet to make.
What I think is the most promising feature of EA is openness to criticism and trying to improve the movement itself. I think SBF was a wake up call and many people in the movement should take note that this isn't how we get to a better future or do the most good (although I think his tactics also were not really EA canon, if there is one, and I don't know if people knew there could be outright fraud -- disclaimer, I don't know the details of SBF's case). That case highlighted the importance of following common sense ethics, honesty and so on.
I also think it's a very common issue for smart people to 'get over their heads' (is that a valid expression?), which I wrote about here: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/yww9g6/be_s...
It's certainly dangerous to use reasoning to justify whatever you would like to be true. I believe this is addressed in Julia's book 'The Scout Mindset' (haven't read it, only a few reviews!), and it's actually one of the main points of the book (with several examples of that) -- a.k.a. motivated reasoning, arrogance, etc.. We can't be perfect, but we can learn from our mistakes and be aware of those dangers.
I hope the EA community will have a sincere look at those issues and address whatever needs to be addressed. I myself will continue to be an EA possibly forever, because the root ideas are very sound. I want to help people, and I want to learn how to best help others. You can't make me not want to help others effectively ;)