I watched the video and then downvoted this post. The video is a criticism of EA and philanthropy, but there isn’t anything new, thoughtful, or useful. I would have upvoted if I thought the criticism was insightful. We’ve had much better left-wing criticism of EA before on the forum.
Adam and Amy make basic mistakes. For example at 15:30, Adam says that GiveWell recommends funding AI alignment work, and that caused him to become critical because they weren’t also recommending climate change mitigation. Adam treats GiveWell, SBF, and the entire EA movement as the same entity. Amy claims that EA is entirely about saving human lives. Neither demonstrated they were aware of the intense debate on saving vs. improving lives, or the concern for animals.
Among Amy’s examples of good philanthropy are a billion dollars for the Amazon strike fund, and purchasing lots in NYC to make them community gardens instead of housing. Adam comes away from the conversation thinking that his philanthropic dollars that he gave to the Against Malaria Foundation would have better been spent on the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC or a local community garden (60:00). Both celebrate scope neglect, nepotism, and a worldview that the root of problems is political. They mock trolley problems and other philosophy thought problems as a masturbatory, navel-gazing effort, with no real world implications. All they have to offer in support of their preferred charities is an onslaught of left-wing buzzwords.
I think keeping people aware of criticism is worthwhile, but this would be better as a quick take than a full post because it’s the same old stuff.
Some criticism isn’t worthy of even a quick take, but the author’s bio has enough to justify one here, especially since she just published a book on the topic and seems to be on a marketing campaign.
I watched the video and then downvoted this post. The video is a criticism of EA and philanthropy, but there isn’t anything new, thoughtful, or useful. I would have upvoted if I thought the criticism was insightful. We’ve had much better left-wing criticism of EA before on the forum.
Adam and Amy make basic mistakes. For example at 15:30, Adam says that GiveWell recommends funding AI alignment work, and that caused him to become critical because they weren’t also recommending climate change mitigation. Adam treats GiveWell, SBF, and the entire EA movement as the same entity. Amy claims that EA is entirely about saving human lives. Neither demonstrated they were aware of the intense debate on saving vs. improving lives, or the concern for animals.
Among Amy’s examples of good philanthropy are a billion dollars for the Amazon strike fund, and purchasing lots in NYC to make them community gardens instead of housing. Adam comes away from the conversation thinking that his philanthropic dollars that he gave to the Against Malaria Foundation would have better been spent on the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC or a local community garden (60:00). Both celebrate scope neglect, nepotism, and a worldview that the root of problems is political. They mock trolley problems and other philosophy thought problems as a masturbatory, navel-gazing effort, with no real world implications. All they have to offer in support of their preferred charities is an onslaught of left-wing buzzwords.
I think keeping people aware of criticism is worthwhile, but this would be better as a quick take than a full post because it’s the same old stuff.
Some criticism isn’t worthy of even a quick take, but the author’s bio has enough to justify one here, especially since she just published a book on the topic and seems to be on a marketing campaign.