I found the tone of this piece pretty sneer-y and offputting. There’s a difference between “here’s an extreme example showing why this argument doesn’t work” and “look how stupid these people are” — I think this writing is veering towards the latter, and I’d prefer to see less of that on the Forum.
Yep. If a major objection to criticism is that it often misunderstands or even strawman the movement, trying to strawman almost every criticism ever offered of anyone or anything associated with Effective Altruism in the same article probably isn’t the best way of addressing matters even if it’s obviously not serious and some of the original criticisms really aren’t very good. One of the most common claims that EAs make about themselves is that with “scout mentality” they are extremely receptive to criticism and always looking for ways they might be able to do better; one of the most common criticising of EAs is that actually they’re more concerned with justifying how much better they are than anyone else…
The “Instead Henry Heimlich would get the credit” quote made me laugh tbf.
Executive summary: The post satirizes critiques of Effective Altruism by taking critical arguments to absurd logical extremes, revealing the flawed reasoning behind some of EA’s most vocal detractors.
Key points:
The author parodies EA critics by demonstrating how their arguments, if followed to their conclusion, lead to morally horrific outcomes
The satire mocks various critiques, including accusations of white saviorism, colonialism, and hero complexes within the EA movement
The piece uses dark humor to expose the logical inconsistencies in arguments against trying to do measurable good
Critics’ arguments are systematically reduced to absurd positions that would actually cause harm rather than help
The post highlights the danger of dismissing systematic, evidence-based approaches to addressing global challenges
The satirical narrative escalates from passive inaction to actively causing harm, illustrating the potential consequences of rejecting principled humanitarian efforts
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
I found the tone of this piece pretty sneer-y and offputting. There’s a difference between “here’s an extreme example showing why this argument doesn’t work” and “look how stupid these people are” — I think this writing is veering towards the latter, and I’d prefer to see less of that on the Forum.
Yep. If a major objection to criticism is that it often misunderstands or even strawman the movement, trying to strawman almost every criticism ever offered of anyone or anything associated with Effective Altruism in the same article probably isn’t the best way of addressing matters even if it’s obviously not serious and some of the original criticisms really aren’t very good. One of the most common claims that EAs make about themselves is that with “scout mentality” they are extremely receptive to criticism and always looking for ways they might be able to do better; one of the most common criticising of EAs is that actually they’re more concerned with justifying how much better they are than anyone else…
The “Instead Henry Heimlich would get the credit” quote made me laugh tbf.
Executive summary: The post satirizes critiques of Effective Altruism by taking critical arguments to absurd logical extremes, revealing the flawed reasoning behind some of EA’s most vocal detractors.
Key points:
The author parodies EA critics by demonstrating how their arguments, if followed to their conclusion, lead to morally horrific outcomes
The satire mocks various critiques, including accusations of white saviorism, colonialism, and hero complexes within the EA movement
The piece uses dark humor to expose the logical inconsistencies in arguments against trying to do measurable good
Critics’ arguments are systematically reduced to absurd positions that would actually cause harm rather than help
The post highlights the danger of dismissing systematic, evidence-based approaches to addressing global challenges
The satirical narrative escalates from passive inaction to actively causing harm, illustrating the potential consequences of rejecting principled humanitarian efforts
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
Laughed out loud for a good minute after reading this!