Until I read this article, saw this post and read the comments on it, I kind of imagined that EA’s were very similar to normal people, just a bit more altruistic and a bit more expansive and maybe a bit more thoughtful.
This post scares the hell out of me.
This article is one of the worst articles I’ve ever seen in the NY Times. It is utter bullshit, but coated in meaningless, sweet-sounding words.
This is an attack on everything that we believe in! What the hell will it take to make EA’s angry if this nonsense, in probably the most famous newspaper in the world, does not?
Why do we just sit back and think “that’s not a very fair analysis”?
Does nobody feel an urgent need to defend ourselves, to get on TV and radio and places other than the EA forum and explain to the world that this article totally misses the point of EA, totally mischaracterises what we’re trying to achieve and why?
If someone wrote an article about a minority group and described them with a few nasty racist stereotypes, there would be massive protests, retractions, apologies and a real effort to ensure that people were well informed about the reality.
The word “minority” is important here. If EA were the dominate mode of donating to charity, as it should be, then sure, it would be fine for someone to write that there is also value in donating to small, local charities, to challenge the status quo.
But EA represents only a small minority of donors today, so it is totally inappropriate for a journalist to pick on it.
But what really makes my blood boil are those who were not mentioned or consulted by this sad excuse for a journalist. For example, the people who desperately need food or medicine to survive. The animals who suffer in factory farms. The people who will suffer the most from climate-change.
We need to call this out for the bullshit it is. EA’s believe that, when you donate, you should think a bit more about the people and animals who desperately need your help, and about what they need and how to help them, and maybe think a little bit less about the warm fuzzy feeling you get helping someone who will thank you profusely in person.
I absolutely refuse to accept that there is something wrong with that, and I find it shocking and appalling that the NY Times would publish this article as probably the only significant article they have published about EA since the last negative articles they published during the SBF affair.
At the very minimum, they have a responsibility to get their facts straight. Just read the four paragraphs where she introduces effective altruism. For her it is not a ground-roots movement, it is all about billionaires and ultra-wealthy. This is just not true. But she doesn’t even mention that 99.999% of EA’s are not rich by American standards—it’s just that, unlike most, we’re aware of how rich we are by global standards.
I would really hope to see a strong rebuttal submitted by someone in the EA movement. I would write it myself (and I will), but I don’t think an article by me will get published in the NY Times. But there are people in the EA movement who are not millionaires but who do have the name-recognition and credibility to be listened to. This absolutely needs to happen, and fast. Maybe we could turn this negative into a positive. But giving season is already in full swing, and the people and animals who desperately depend on effective giving cannot afford to lose any of the insufficient donations they already get, even if it does mean that the local dog-shelter gets painted in bright Christmassy colours.
For now I plan to share this on my own social media and use it as an excuse to talk about effective giving and, as a side note, to share an example of shoddy journalism.
I upvoted this because I like the passion, and I too feel a desire to passionately defend EA and the disempowered beneficiaries EAs seek to protect, who are indirectly harmed by this kind of sloppy coverage. I do hope people respond, and I think EAs err towards being too passive about media coverage.
But I think important parts of this take are quite wrong.
Most people just aren’t basically sympathetic to EA, let alone EAs-waiting-to-happen; they have a tangle of different moral intuitions and aren’t very well-informed or thoughtful about it. Sure, they’ll say they want more effective charity, but they also want to give back to their local community and follow fads and do what makes them feel good and support things that helped them in particular and keep the money for themselves and all kindsa stuff. So, I don’t think this is surprising, and I think it’s important for EAs to be clear-eyed about how they’re different from other people.
I don’t think that means EAs could never be a dominant force in philanthropy or whatever; most people throughout history didn’t care about anti-racism or demoncracy but they’re popular now; caring about what your ancestors has declined a lot; things can change, I just don’t think it’s inevitable or foregone (or couldn’t reverse).
If someone wrote an article about a minority group and described them with a few nasty racist stereotypes, there would be massive protests, retractions, apologies and a real effort to ensure that people were well informed about the reality.
People would do this for some kinds of minorities (racial or sex/gender minorities), and for racist stereotypes. I don’t think they would for people with unusual hobbies or lifestyle choices or belief sets, with stereotypes related to those things. “not being racist” or discriminating against some kinds of minorities is a sacred value for much of liberal elite society, but many kinds of minorities aren’t covered by that.
Crappy stereotypes are always bad, but I don’t think that means that just because you’re a minority you shouldn’t be potentially subject to serious criticism (of course, unfortunately this criticism isn’t intellectually serious).
I don’t think they would for people with unusual hobbies or lifestyle choices or belief sets, with stereotypes related to those things.
And the “stereotyping” in here is really limited and not particularly negative: there’s space apportioned to highlighting how OpenPhil’s chief executive gave a kidney for the cause and none to stereotypes of WEIRD Bay Area nerds or Oxford ivory towers or effective partying in the Bahamas. If you knew nothing else about the movement, you’d probably come away with the conclusion that EAs were a bit too consistent in obsessing over measurable outcomes; most of the more informed and effective criticisms argue the opposite!
(It also ends up by suggesting that EA as a philosophy offers a set of questions that are worth asking and some of its typical answers are perfectly valid. Think most minorities would love it if outside criticism of their culture generally drew that sort of conclusion!)
EAs can and do write opinion pieces broadly or specifically criticising other people’s philanthropic choices all the time. I don’t think EA should be exempted from such arguments.
Perplexed by the reaction here. Not sure what people are taking most issue with:.
Me saying the stereotypes were limited and not particularly negative? If you think a reference to being disproportionately funded by a small number of tech billionaires, (balanced out by also accurate references to Singer and the prior emergence of a movement and an example of Berger giving a kidney rather than money) is negative stereotyping, you haven’t read other critical takes on EA, never mind experienced what some other “minorities” deal with on a daily basis!
Me saying the more informed and effective criticisms of EA and EA orgs tended to point out where they fall well short of the rigour they demand? Again, I’d have thought it was glaringly obvious, whether it’s nuanced insider criticism of specific inconsistencies in outcome measures or reviews of specific organizations, or drive-by observations that buying Wytham Abbey or early-stage funding for OpenAI may not have been high points of evidence-based philanthropy. That’s obviously more useful than “these people have a different worldview” type articles like this. Even some of the purely stereotype-based criticisms of the money sloshing around the FTX ecosystem probably weren’t “stopped clock” moments...
Or me pointing out that EAs also criticise non EAs’ philanthropic choices, sometimes in generic terms? If you haven’t read Peter Singer writing how other people have the wrong philanthropic priorities, you haven’t read much Peter Singer!
Until I read this article, saw this post and read the comments on it, I kind of imagined that EA’s were very similar to normal people, just a bit more altruistic and a bit more expansive and maybe a bit more thoughtful.
This post scares the hell out of me.
This article is one of the worst articles I’ve ever seen in the NY Times. It is utter bullshit, but coated in meaningless, sweet-sounding words.
This is an attack on everything that we believe in! What the hell will it take to make EA’s angry if this nonsense, in probably the most famous newspaper in the world, does not?
Why do we just sit back and think “that’s not a very fair analysis”?
Does nobody feel an urgent need to defend ourselves, to get on TV and radio and places other than the EA forum and explain to the world that this article totally misses the point of EA, totally mischaracterises what we’re trying to achieve and why?
If someone wrote an article about a minority group and described them with a few nasty racist stereotypes, there would be massive protests, retractions, apologies and a real effort to ensure that people were well informed about the reality.
The word “minority” is important here. If EA were the dominate mode of donating to charity, as it should be, then sure, it would be fine for someone to write that there is also value in donating to small, local charities, to challenge the status quo.
But EA represents only a small minority of donors today, so it is totally inappropriate for a journalist to pick on it.
But what really makes my blood boil are those who were not mentioned or consulted by this sad excuse for a journalist. For example, the people who desperately need food or medicine to survive. The animals who suffer in factory farms. The people who will suffer the most from climate-change.
We need to call this out for the bullshit it is. EA’s believe that, when you donate, you should think a bit more about the people and animals who desperately need your help, and about what they need and how to help them, and maybe think a little bit less about the warm fuzzy feeling you get helping someone who will thank you profusely in person.
I absolutely refuse to accept that there is something wrong with that, and I find it shocking and appalling that the NY Times would publish this article as probably the only significant article they have published about EA since the last negative articles they published during the SBF affair.
At the very minimum, they have a responsibility to get their facts straight. Just read the four paragraphs where she introduces effective altruism. For her it is not a ground-roots movement, it is all about billionaires and ultra-wealthy. This is just not true. But she doesn’t even mention that 99.999% of EA’s are not rich by American standards—it’s just that, unlike most, we’re aware of how rich we are by global standards.
I would really hope to see a strong rebuttal submitted by someone in the EA movement. I would write it myself (and I will), but I don’t think an article by me will get published in the NY Times. But there are people in the EA movement who are not millionaires but who do have the name-recognition and credibility to be listened to. This absolutely needs to happen, and fast. Maybe we could turn this negative into a positive. But giving season is already in full swing, and the people and animals who desperately depend on effective giving cannot afford to lose any of the insufficient donations they already get, even if it does mean that the local dog-shelter gets painted in bright Christmassy colours.
For now I plan to share this on my own social media and use it as an excuse to talk about effective giving and, as a side note, to share an example of shoddy journalism.
I upvoted this because I like the passion, and I too feel a desire to passionately defend EA and the disempowered beneficiaries EAs seek to protect, who are indirectly harmed by this kind of sloppy coverage. I do hope people respond, and I think EAs err towards being too passive about media coverage.
But I think important parts of this take are quite wrong.
Most people just aren’t basically sympathetic to EA, let alone EAs-waiting-to-happen; they have a tangle of different moral intuitions and aren’t very well-informed or thoughtful about it. Sure, they’ll say they want more effective charity, but they also want to give back to their local community and follow fads and do what makes them feel good and support things that helped them in particular and keep the money for themselves and all kindsa stuff. So, I don’t think this is surprising, and I think it’s important for EAs to be clear-eyed about how they’re different from other people.
I don’t think that means EAs could never be a dominant force in philanthropy or whatever; most people throughout history didn’t care about anti-racism or demoncracy but they’re popular now; caring about what your ancestors has declined a lot; things can change, I just don’t think it’s inevitable or foregone (or couldn’t reverse).
People would do this for some kinds of minorities (racial or sex/gender minorities), and for racist stereotypes. I don’t think they would for people with unusual hobbies or lifestyle choices or belief sets, with stereotypes related to those things. “not being racist” or discriminating against some kinds of minorities is a sacred value for much of liberal elite society, but many kinds of minorities aren’t covered by that.
Crappy stereotypes are always bad, but I don’t think that means that just because you’re a minority you shouldn’t be potentially subject to serious criticism (of course, unfortunately this criticism isn’t intellectually serious).
And the “stereotyping” in here is really limited and not particularly negative: there’s space apportioned to highlighting how OpenPhil’s chief executive gave a kidney for the cause and none to stereotypes of WEIRD Bay Area nerds or Oxford ivory towers or effective partying in the Bahamas. If you knew nothing else about the movement, you’d probably come away with the conclusion that EAs were a bit too consistent in obsessing over measurable outcomes; most of the more informed and effective criticisms argue the opposite!
(It also ends up by suggesting that EA as a philosophy offers a set of questions that are worth asking and some of its typical answers are perfectly valid. Think most minorities would love it if outside criticism of their culture generally drew that sort of conclusion!)
EAs can and do write opinion pieces broadly or specifically criticising other people’s philanthropic choices all the time. I don’t think EA should be exempted from such arguments.
Perplexed by the reaction here. Not sure what people are taking most issue with:.
Me saying the stereotypes were limited and not particularly negative? If you think a reference to being disproportionately funded by a small number of tech billionaires, (balanced out by also accurate references to Singer and the prior emergence of a movement and an example of Berger giving a kidney rather than money) is negative stereotyping, you haven’t read other critical takes on EA, never mind experienced what some other “minorities” deal with on a daily basis!
Me saying the more informed and effective criticisms of EA and EA orgs tended to point out where they fall well short of the rigour they demand? Again, I’d have thought it was glaringly obvious, whether it’s nuanced insider criticism of specific inconsistencies in outcome measures or reviews of specific organizations, or drive-by observations that buying Wytham Abbey or early-stage funding for OpenAI may not have been high points of evidence-based philanthropy. That’s obviously more useful than “these people have a different worldview” type articles like this. Even some of the purely stereotype-based criticisms of the money sloshing around the FTX ecosystem probably weren’t “stopped clock” moments...
Or me pointing out that EAs also criticise non EAs’ philanthropic choices, sometimes in generic terms? If you haven’t read Peter Singer writing how other people have the wrong philanthropic priorities, you haven’t read much Peter Singer!