Mon March 04, 2019 8:56 pm
This caused some to ask me to explain this further.Green Habit wrote:I hate these types of fabricated dilemmas. This is the kind of thing that gets me itching to rant about the problems with the "effective altruism" movement.
Dylan Matthews wrote:In 2011, MacAskill, Ord, and others named their incipient movement “effective altruism.” And from there, the movement quickly developed a few main areas of focus: global health and economic development, the traditional focus area of both GiveWell and moral philosophers like Singer and Unger; animal welfare, since there are many more animals in factory farms than there are humans on earth, and they are living vastly worse lives on average; and preventing catastrophic risks — like climate change, nuclear war, or unregulated artificial intelligence — that have the potential to end humanity or severely set back human civilization. We think all of these issues are incredibly important and undercovered relative to their importance. That’s why we wanted to start a new section devoted to them.
Wed March 06, 2019 12:49 pm
Wed March 06, 2019 2:51 pm
Well said on all points. It is definitely worthwhile to have someone monitor how nonprofits are administered, and to make them work better at their goal. That's why it's so frustrating that EA is sucking up so much oxygen by tacking on its oddball views on what causes it believes people should be giving to.Dscans wrote:Thanks for posting this GH.
One of the things I admire about EA, at least from what I've read, is that it tries to hold non profits accountable. Everyone really should be looking at administrative costs and have an understanding of how much their donation actually goes toward supporting whatever/whomever it is they want to help.
My complaint is about the same as yours. The idea starts with a very utilitarian view of humanity, a view that Kahneman and Tversky have proven that economists got wrong, and gives this one-size-fits-all process.
One of the best books I've read relative to my field is called The Seven Faces of Philanthropy. The authors research hundreds of major donors and discover seven archetypes explaining why people give. The most popular one is the Communitarian, which sounds like you GH.
I think the failure of EA advocates is in thinking people give because of some extensive cost/benefit analysis. People give for emotional reasons. EA advocates sound like a mix of the Altruist and Investor archetypes, and it sounds like they worked backwards from there to develop a theory to "prove" their way of thinking is correct.
Thu March 07, 2019 1:01 pm
Tue March 12, 2019 2:02 am
Bi_3 wrote:Not familiar with this concept... is there some boundary on ‘most people’?
Tue March 12, 2019 2:10 am
Dscans wrote:Bi_3 wrote:Not familiar with this concept... is there some boundary on ‘most people’?
What are you quoting 'most people' from?
Tue March 12, 2019 2:16 am
Bi_3 wrote:Dscans wrote:Bi_3 wrote:Not familiar with this concept... is there some boundary on ‘most people’?
What are you quoting 'most people' from?
Ummmm. I think it was the Vox link. I don’t remember
Wed April 26, 2023 6:15 am
Wed April 26, 2023 11:06 am
Wed April 26, 2023 11:44 am