In the future, effective altruism may need to become less risk averse. There is appeal in Givewell’s top recommendations for classic charitable causes because there is more-or-less a guarantee people will be helped as cash transfers, mosquito bed nets, or vaccinations are delivered. If effective altruism donates millions of dollars to an advocacy campaign which may fail, or fund a project with a decades-long trajectory difficult to predict in the present, it’s less certain someone in need will be as helped as we hoped for. There may also be a personal bias among individuals who want to feel as though their dollars donated definitely made a difference despite what mistakes other donors make. So, that could be a bias towards donating to the Against Malaria Foundation, or GiveDirectly. I know this worry has pulled on my heartstrings in the past, but I’m (slowly) overcoming it. I know of no data of how pervasive this bias may actually be among altruists.
One solution could be to separate ego and psychology from expected value. Part of effective altruism’s appeal is it can make one feel good about oneself. This can come from a confidence that donating to an effective charity which will definitely leads to lives saved feels better than feeling ambivalent about the value of private charity and its uncertainty. However, that’s a state of thinking effective altruism may need to return to. Plenty of wealthy philanthropists donate money to art museums and other institutions which won’t go on to save lives. These philanthropists still reap the status of donating, and feel good about themselves. There are activists and protest movements around the world proud of the work they do, but not all are guaranteed to work. If others can feel that way, then I think effective altruism can take on bigger risks with a chance of greater value as well, without us feeling bad about ourselves.
Another solution may be effective altruism scaling up what it approaches, and thinking bigger about what it can achieve. Good Ventures is more or less aligned with effective altruism, with other major philanthropists able to donate as much as the rest of this movement combined doing related work (e.g., Elon Musk). William MacAskill’s new book Doing Good Better was recently positively reviewed by Susan Desmond-Hellman, the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Further, catastrophic risks like Artificial Intelligence and pandemic biotechnology are now or may soon receive funding from the National Science Foundation and other governmental bodies in the United States.
These are all indicators that even if effective altruism doesn’t hit explosive growth in the next couple years, it still has a chance of affecting the biggest movers and donors in philanthropy. This doesn’t make much less imperative for individual donors the identified responsibility of saving lives by way of UNICEF or OxFam. Effective altruism may need change its pitch. Being an individual who saves hundreds of lives through earning to give or through regular donations might need give way to pursuing a more ambitious and less conventional career of being part of a more coordinated global network or actors whose greatest value is in doing work beyond the scope of individuals.
To find the best giving opportunities might require effective altruism pioneering new ways of finding them, or creating them itself.
In the future, effective altruism may need to become less risk averse. There is appeal in Givewell’s top recommendations for classic charitable causes because there is more-or-less a guarantee people will be helped as cash transfers, mosquito bed nets, or vaccinations are delivered. If effective altruism donates millions of dollars to an advocacy campaign which may fail, or fund a project with a decades-long trajectory difficult to predict in the present, it’s less certain someone in need will be as helped as we hoped for. There may also be a personal bias among individuals who want to feel as though their dollars donated definitely made a difference despite what mistakes other donors make. So, that could be a bias towards donating to the Against Malaria Foundation, or GiveDirectly. I know this worry has pulled on my heartstrings in the past, but I’m (slowly) overcoming it. I know of no data of how pervasive this bias may actually be among altruists.
One solution could be to separate ego and psychology from expected value. Part of effective altruism’s appeal is it can make one feel good about oneself. This can come from a confidence that donating to an effective charity which will definitely leads to lives saved feels better than feeling ambivalent about the value of private charity and its uncertainty. However, that’s a state of thinking effective altruism may need to return to. Plenty of wealthy philanthropists donate money to art museums and other institutions which won’t go on to save lives. These philanthropists still reap the status of donating, and feel good about themselves. There are activists and protest movements around the world proud of the work they do, but not all are guaranteed to work. If others can feel that way, then I think effective altruism can take on bigger risks with a chance of greater value as well, without us feeling bad about ourselves.
Another solution may be effective altruism scaling up what it approaches, and thinking bigger about what it can achieve. Good Ventures is more or less aligned with effective altruism, with other major philanthropists able to donate as much as the rest of this movement combined doing related work (e.g., Elon Musk). William MacAskill’s new book Doing Good Better was recently positively reviewed by Susan Desmond-Hellman, the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Further, catastrophic risks like Artificial Intelligence and pandemic biotechnology are now or may soon receive funding from the National Science Foundation and other governmental bodies in the United States.
These are all indicators that even if effective altruism doesn’t hit explosive growth in the next couple years, it still has a chance of affecting the biggest movers and donors in philanthropy. This doesn’t make much less imperative for individual donors the identified responsibility of saving lives by way of UNICEF or OxFam. Effective altruism may need change its pitch. Being an individual who saves hundreds of lives through earning to give or through regular donations might need give way to pursuing a more ambitious and less conventional career of being part of a more coordinated global network or actors whose greatest value is in doing work beyond the scope of individuals.
To find the best giving opportunities might require effective altruism pioneering new ways of finding them, or creating them itself.