I used to believe in Effective Altruism but the older I get the more I realise that it’s just another “feel good” philanthropy for rich people movement with completely warped values around so called rationality, utilitarianism and technological saviour complexes. If one reads the website and the projects accomplished most of them are completely vapid. Malaria nets? AI assignment research? Some high brow research institute? Real help is helping people to improve their lives at a personal level, not saving them a couple of bucks while banking. To anyone reading this, don’t fall for this. It’s no wonder Sam Bankman Fried was so closely advocating for Effective Altruism, it’s just the same old virtue signaling, but with a bit of rationality injected in.
This seems like an overly cynical take. Malaria nets have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. You can be critical of some areas of EA, but it's hard to deny that organizations like Against Malaria Foundation and GiveWell are doing a lot of good in the world. What's wrong with donating with the goal of maximizing lives saved per dollar?
Saving lives is a good thing but I just have a gut feeling against this traditional image of “doing good” due to my experience with working with many charities and seeing first hand how useless the majority of them are. It’s not about quantifying their impact, it’s understanding the whole mentality is completely wrong, so movements like GiveWell don’t really change much. Philanthropy is about helping others, when the people helping don’t even have their own stuff sorted out. Classic archetype repeated through history and fiction is similar to the Man in Black from Westworld. Rich dude who feeds his ego and avoids his inner landscape and crumbling family by being a saviour. Why do people jump at volunteering in Africa when their own countries and neighbours are in shambles? Case in point, San Francisco. I don’t doubt that a lot of good has come from EA but my impression is it’s just an incremental evolution of traditional philanthropy, which is basically 90% rich people trying to make themselves feel better and ingratiate themselves with other rich people. Real change also comes from certain charities but they’re much more focused on empowering people and loving them, rather than some lofty ideological goals around AI alignment. When most of your country is struggling paycheck to paycheck, most people will see an excessive focus on these abstract concepts as very out of touch. The malaria nets weren’t the best examples but the rest of the projects demonstrate what I mean. Source: Working in the space.
I don't think you understand the EA movement at all or it history. The foundation of it is Giving What We Can - https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ - regular people (not rich) giving at least 10% of their income to cost-effective charities. I've been giving for over 10 years now - and I started as a math teacher.
You say "why won't people help in San Francisco". This betrays a severe misunderstanding of effectiveness. How many thousands of dollars would a single individual need to give to a charity working in SF to help one person as much as they can with a $2 donation to AMF (Against Malaria Foundation - providing protection from malaria for 3 years). People are people, regardless of where they were born, and helping more people is better than helping fewer.
"Most people will see [this activity] as very out of touch". So what? Most people saw gay rights as out of touch, most people still see animal welfare / animal rights activities as "out of touch".
What you're saying is exactly what motivated Effective Altruism: most charities are ineffective, and philanthropy should be about saving/improving people's lives, not feel-good causes; we should try to do the most good with our time and money.
The following video by Peter Singer is a good intro to Effective Altruism and the philosophy behind it. His essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" was one of the primary influences on the founders of the movement.
It's true that more recently many people in the movement have shifted their focus from global health and development to areas like AI risk and biosecurity. Whether or not you agree with working on these areas, I don't think the people working on them are doing it cynically. I think they are motivated to work on these areas because they believe it will do the most good for humanity.
What's your thought process on malaria nets being vapid? It's not structural change, but (statistically) saving a life for ~$6k (I think that's their estimate? Or was at some point) is amazing, and very "real".
I don't have any experience with the actual culture of EA, but the concept and the philanthropy itself seems at least as good as other charities or mission-focused organizations.
