This video is definitely a mixed bag. First, the video’s title is needlessly provocative: most effective altruists aren’t rich. Second, I don’t like how nearly a third of the video was dedicated to longtermism and the FTX scandal. Thorn adds a bunch of fake controversy by pointing out (2:47 in the video) that William MacAskill’s What We Owe the Future was recommended by Elon Musk (even though Musk is barely, if at all, important to the effective altruism movement). And as if this wasn’t already tendentious enough, she then (3:20 in the video) contrasts a fundraiser for a trans healthcare charity with donating to a charity that distributes medicine against trachoma. Here she gets dangerously close to implying that effective altruism is somehow opposed to LGBT activism. She could have just as well mentioned that while LGBT issues are arguably neglected in the effective altruism movement, they do get talked about (this thread is an example). She could have also pointed out how according to the EA Survey 2020, around 20% of participants were non-straight, which is probably more than in the general population. But alas, fake controversy generates more likes and views I guess?
While I appreciate that Thorn concludes the video by encouraging people to form their own views on the matter, her claim that “I would never tell you to either join or not join the effective altruism movement. My job is to tell you what the theory says and why people believe it” doesn’t sound very convincing when she dedicates so much of the video to framing the effective altruism movement as a bunch of conservative capitalists and techno-utopianists, while basically not discussing effective altruist animal advocacy and key concepts like the ITN framework, cause neutrality and means neutrality.
That being said, I really appreciated how well Thorn worded the critique of the democratic deficit of the effective altruism movement (12:22-14:40 in the video) and I like that she quoted a topic on this forum by Carla Zoe Cremer. This doesn’t get talked about nearly enough, so it’s great that Thorn raised this topic. Also, I liked the video’s humor, which helps soften the otherwise needlessly snarky tone. And I chuckled when she pointed out that her viewers don’t differ too much from the typical effective altruist (6:00-6:20 in the video), which is true!
Overall, the video has some merits, but I don’t think it’s a very good contribution to the debate on effective altruism. The video frames effective altruism in a rather innacurate way. Thorn could have used her philosophical skills to zoom out from the current media obsession with longtermism and FTX and discuss effective altruism’s relationship to capitalism and democracy in greater depth, but unfortunately didn’t take that opportunity. Sadly, it looks like this video will mainly contribute to the growing mutual misunderstanding between effective altruists and leftists outside of the effective altruism movement, even though ironically over 70% of participants of the EA Survey 2019 identified as ‘left’ or ‘center left’.
This video is definitely a mixed bag. First, the video’s title is needlessly provocative: most effective altruists aren’t rich. Second, I don’t like how nearly a third of the video was dedicated to longtermism and the FTX scandal. Thorn adds a bunch of fake controversy by pointing out (2:47 in the video) that William MacAskill’s What We Owe the Future was recommended by Elon Musk (even though Musk is barely, if at all, important to the effective altruism movement). And as if this wasn’t already tendentious enough, she then (3:20 in the video) contrasts a fundraiser for a trans healthcare charity with donating to a charity that distributes medicine against trachoma. Here she gets dangerously close to implying that effective altruism is somehow opposed to LGBT activism. She could have just as well mentioned that while LGBT issues are arguably neglected in the effective altruism movement, they do get talked about (this thread is an example). She could have also pointed out how according to the EA Survey 2020, around 20% of participants were non-straight, which is probably more than in the general population. But alas, fake controversy generates more likes and views I guess?
While I appreciate that Thorn concludes the video by encouraging people to form their own views on the matter, her claim that “I would never tell you to either join or not join the effective altruism movement. My job is to tell you what the theory says and why people believe it” doesn’t sound very convincing when she dedicates so much of the video to framing the effective altruism movement as a bunch of conservative capitalists and techno-utopianists, while basically not discussing effective altruist animal advocacy and key concepts like the ITN framework, cause neutrality and means neutrality.
That being said, I really appreciated how well Thorn worded the critique of the democratic deficit of the effective altruism movement (12:22-14:40 in the video) and I like that she quoted a topic on this forum by Carla Zoe Cremer. This doesn’t get talked about nearly enough, so it’s great that Thorn raised this topic. Also, I liked the video’s humor, which helps soften the otherwise needlessly snarky tone. And I chuckled when she pointed out that her viewers don’t differ too much from the typical effective altruist (6:00-6:20 in the video), which is true!
Overall, the video has some merits, but I don’t think it’s a very good contribution to the debate on effective altruism. The video frames effective altruism in a rather innacurate way. Thorn could have used her philosophical skills to zoom out from the current media obsession with longtermism and FTX and discuss effective altruism’s relationship to capitalism and democracy in greater depth, but unfortunately didn’t take that opportunity. Sadly, it looks like this video will mainly contribute to the growing mutual misunderstanding between effective altruists and leftists outside of the effective altruism movement, even though ironically over 70% of participants of the EA Survey 2019 identified as ‘left’ or ‘center left’.