I don’t fully agree with DeBoer but am much more sympathetic to his views than yourself. Some respectful pushpack on some of your points:
But if you look at what EAs actually recommend, they very much do not recommend defrauding lots of people
It’s true EA does not reccommend fraud but I think we underappreciate EAs role in having encouraged SBF (and the other EAs assosciated with him) to walk down that path. By all accounts, SBF was a very moral person who cared strongly about animals and was set on a career in animal welfare before he was persuaded by William MacAskill to work in crypto on EA grounds. MacAskill made that encouragement and stuck by him even though
Many cryptocurrencies have high carbon emissions
cryptocurrency having questionable utility to society
FTX advertising complex financial products to unsophisticated retail investors in an unethical way (super bowl ads with celebrities)
If everyone supports effective charities, why does the Against Malaria Foundation get such a small percentage of charitable funding?
I don’t disagree with the gist of your point about people being ineffective, but I think this specific example doesn’t work because by definition the most effective charities have to be receiving a small percentage of funding, otherwise they would no longer be neglected.
Is it really plausible that huge numbers of people have looked into it and concluded that the GiveWell top charities are ineffective?
Many people just don’t know GiveWell exists. Or in fact, they think they are using something as good as GiveWell (e.g. Charity Navigator).
DeBoer’s final point involves questioning why one should align oneself with the movement. Why not just like do charitable things effectively? This is, I think, less important than most of his critique. If you don’t call yourself an effective altruist but give 10% of your income to effective charities, take a high-impact career, are vegan, and give away your kidney, I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. In fact, I’d consider you to be basically an EA in spirit, even if not in name.
I disagree that this is not an important part of DeBoer’s critique. DeBoer is stressing that by disassosciating yourself from “Effective Altruism”, you can continue doing the good parts of effective altruism, without the baggage of the bad parts. The bad parts DeBoer describes as things like longtermism, hypotheticals, book promotions, the castle. If you are someone like DeBoer who sees those things as the bad parts of EA, then there probably is value in distancing yourself from EA, as it lets you continue your good deeds without inadvertently supporting the parts of EA you think are misguided.
I don’t fully agree with DeBoer but am much more sympathetic to his views than yourself. Some respectful pushpack on some of your points:
It’s true EA does not reccommend fraud but I think we underappreciate EAs role in having encouraged SBF (and the other EAs assosciated with him) to walk down that path. By all accounts, SBF was a very moral person who cared strongly about animals and was set on a career in animal welfare before he was persuaded by William MacAskill to work in crypto on EA grounds. MacAskill made that encouragement and stuck by him even though
Many cryptocurrencies have high carbon emissions
cryptocurrency having questionable utility to society
FTX advertising complex financial products to unsophisticated retail investors in an unethical way (super bowl ads with celebrities)
I don’t disagree with the gist of your point about people being ineffective, but I think this specific example doesn’t work because by definition the most effective charities have to be receiving a small percentage of funding, otherwise they would no longer be neglected.
Many people just don’t know GiveWell exists. Or in fact, they think they are using something as good as GiveWell (e.g. Charity Navigator).
I disagree that this is not an important part of DeBoer’s critique. DeBoer is stressing that by disassosciating yourself from “Effective Altruism”, you can continue doing the good parts of effective altruism, without the baggage of the bad parts. The bad parts DeBoer describes as things like longtermism, hypotheticals, book promotions, the castle. If you are someone like DeBoer who sees those things as the bad parts of EA, then there probably is value in distancing yourself from EA, as it lets you continue your good deeds without inadvertently supporting the parts of EA you think are misguided.