[some_guy_nobel]

You claim OP's interpretation is inaccurate, while it tracks perfectly with many of EA's most notorious supporters.

Given that contrast, I'd ask what evidence do you have for why OP's interpretation is incorrect, and what evidence do you have that your interpretation is correct?

[RobinL]

> many of EA's most notorious supporters.

The fact they're notorious makes them a biased sample.

My guess is for the majority of people interested in EA - the typical supporter who is not super wealthy or well known - the two central ideas are:

- For people living in wealthy countries, giving some % of your income makes little difference to your life, but can potentially make a big difference to someone else's

- We should carefully decide which charities to give to, because some are far more effective than others.

That's pretty much it - essentially the message in Peter Singer's book: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/.

I would describe myself as an EA, but all that means to me is really the two points above. It certainly isn't anything like an indulgence that morally offsets poor behaviour elsewhere

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

I would say the problem with EA is the "E". Saying you're doing 'effective' altruism is another way of saying that everyone else's altruism is wasteful and ineffective. Which of course isn't the case. The "E" might as well stand for "Elitist" in that's the vibe it gives off. All truly altruistic acts would aim to be effective, otherwise it wouldn't be altruism - it would just be waste. Not to say there is no waste in some altruism acts, but I'm not convinced its actually any worse than EA. Given the fraud associated with some purported EA advocates, I'd say EA might even be worse. The EA movement reeks of the optimize-everything mindset of people convinced they are smarter than everyone else who just say just gives money to a charity A when they could have been 13% more effective if they sent the money directly to this particular school in country B with the condition they only spend it on X. The origins of EA may not be that, but that's what it has evolved into.

[mcv]

I agree. I think the criticism of EA's most notorious supporters is warranted, but it's criticism of those notorious supporters and the people around them, not the core concept of EA itself.

The core notions as you state them are entirely a good idea. But the good you do with part of your money does not absolve you for the bad things you do with the rest, or the bad things you did to get rich in the first place.

Mind you, that's how the rich have always used philanthropy; Andrew Carnegie is now known for his philanthropy, but in life we was a brutal industrialist responsible for oppressive working conditions, strike breaking, and deaths.

Is that really effective altruism? I don't think so. How you make your money matters too. Not just how you spend it.

[btilly]

The OP's interpretation is an inaccurate summary of the philosophy. But it is an excellent summary of the trap that people who try to follow EA can easily fall into. Any attempt to rationally evaluate charity work, can instead wind up rationalizing what they want to do. Settling for the convenient and self-aggrandizing "analysis", rather than a rigorous one.

An even worse trap is to prioritize a future utopia. Utopian ideals are dangerous. They push people towards "the ends justify the means". If the ends are infinitely good, there is no bound on how bad the "justified means" can be.

But history shows that imagined utopias seldom materialize. By contrast the damage from the attempted means is all too real. That's why all of the worst tragedies of the 20th century started with someone who was trying to create a utopia.

EA circles have shown an alarming receptiveness to shysters who are trying to paint a picture of utopia. For example look at how influential someone like Samuel Bankman-Fried was able to be, before his fraud imploded.

[socalgal2]

this feels like “the most notorious atheists/jews/blacks/whites/christian/muslims are bad therefore all atheists/jews/blacks/whites/christian/muslims are bad

[jandrese]

It's like libertarianism. There is a massive gulf between the written goals and the actual actions of the proponents. It might be more accurately thought of as a vehicle for plausible deniability than an actual ethos.

[glenstein]

The problem is that creates a kind of epistemic closure around yourself where you can't encounter such a thing as a sincere expression of it. I actually think your charge against Libertarians is basically accurate. And I think it deserves a (limited) amount of time and attention directed at its core contentions for what they are worth. After all, Robert Nozick considered himself a libertarian and contributed some important thinking on things like justice and retribution and equality and any number of subjects, and the world wouldn't be bettered by dismissing him with twitter style ridicule.

I do agree that things like EA and Libertarianism have to answer for the in-the-wild proponents they tend to attract but not to the point of epistemic closure in response to its subject matter.

[stickfigure]

> tracks perfectly with many of EA's most notorious supporters

Just wait until you find out about vegetarianism's most notorious supporter.

[cortesoft]

Well, in order to be a notorious supporter of EA, you have to have enough money for your charity to be noticed, which means you are very rich. If you are very rich, it means you have to have made money from a capitalistic venture, and those are inherently exploitive.

So basically everyone who has a lot of money to donate has questionable morals already.

The question is, are the large donators to EA groups more or less 'morally suspect' than large donors to other charity types?

In other words, everyone with a lot of money is morally questionable, and EA donors are just a subset of that.

[nl]

> you have to have made money from a capitalistic venture, and those are inherently exploitive.

You say this like it's fact beyond dispute, but I for one strongly disagree.

Not a fan of EA at all though!