This story might surprise you if youâve heard that EA is great at receiving criticisms. I think this reputation is partially earned, since the EA community does indeed engage with a large number of them. The EA Forum, for example, has given âCriticism of effective altruismâ its own tag. At the moment of writing, this tag has 490 posts on it. Not bad.
Not only does EA allow criticisms, it sometimes monetarily rewards them. In 2022 there was the EA criticism contest, where people could send in their criticisms of EA and the best ones would receive prize money. A total of $120,000 was awarded to 31 of the contestâs 341 entries. At first glance, this seems like strong evidence that EA rewards critiques, but things become a little bit more complicated when we look at who the winners and losers were.
After giving it a look, the EA Criticism and Red Teaming Contest is not what I would describe as being about âcriticism of effective altruismâ, either in terms of what the contest asked for in the announcement post or in terms of what essays ended up winning the prizes. At least not mostly.
When you say âcriticism of effective altruismâ, that makes me think of the sort of criticism that a skeptical outsider would make about effective altruism. Or that it would be about the kind of thing that might make a self-identified effective altruist think less of effective altruism overall, or even consider leaving the movement.
Out of 31 essays that won prizes, only the following four seem like âcriticism of effective altruismâ, based on the summaries:
âEffective altruism in the garden of endsâ by Tyler Alterman (second prize)
âNotes on effective altruismâ by Michael Nielsen (second prize)
âCritiques of EA that I want to readâ by Abraham Rowe (honourable mention)
âLeaning into EA Disillusionmentâ by Helen (honourable mention)
The essay âCriticism of EA Criticism Contestâ by Zvi (which got an honourable mention) points out what Iâm pointing out, but I wouldnât count this one because it doesnât actually make criticisms of effective altruism itself.
This is not to say anything about whether the other 27 essays were good or bad, or whether the contest was good or bad. Just that I think this contest was mostly not about âcriticisms of EAâ.
After giving it a look, the EA Criticism and Red Teaming Contest is not what I would describe as being about âcriticism of effective altruismâ, either in terms of what the contest asked for in the announcement post or in terms of what essays ended up winning the prizes. At least not mostly.
When you say âcriticism of effective altruismâ, that makes me think of the sort of criticism that a skeptical outsider would make about effective altruism. Or that it would be about the kind of thing that might make a self-identified effective altruist think less of effective altruism overall, or even consider leaving the movement.
Out of 31 essays that won prizes, only the following four seem like âcriticism of effective altruismâ, based on the summaries:
âEffective altruism in the garden of endsâ by Tyler Alterman (second prize)
âNotes on effective altruismâ by Michael Nielsen (second prize)
âCritiques of EA that I want to readâ by Abraham Rowe (honourable mention)
âLeaning into EA Disillusionmentâ by Helen (honourable mention)
The essay âCriticism of EA Criticism Contestâ by Zvi (which got an honourable mention) points out what Iâm pointing out, but I wouldnât count this one because it doesnât actually make criticisms of effective altruism itself.
This is not to say anything about whether the other 27 essays were good or bad, or whether the contest was good or bad. Just that I think this contest was mostly not about âcriticisms of EAâ.