Your discussion of the ‘good’ in the book doesn’t mention a part of Amia’s foreword that I think is a fairly powerful critique (though far from establishing “effective altruism is bad as currently practiced” or anything that strong):
‘These [above] are some of the questions raised when the story of Effective Altruism’s success is told not by its proponents, but by those engaged in liberation struggles and justice movements that operate outside Effective Altruism’s terms. These struggles, it must be said, long predate Effective Altruism, and it is striking that Effective Altruism has not found anything very worthwhile in them: in the historically deep and ongoing movements for the rights of working-class people, nonhuman animals, people of color, Indigenous people, women, incarcerated people, disabled people, and people living under colonial and authoritarian rule. For most Effective Altruists, these movements are, at best, examples of ineffective attempts to do good; negative examples from which to prescind or correct, not political formations from which to learn, with which to create coalition, or to join.’
Now, we can debate the extent to which this is true (most EAs are actually pretty sympathetic to animal rights activism I suspect, Open Phil. gave money to criminal justice reform etc.). But insofar as it is true, I take it the challenge is something like: ‘what’s more likely, all those movements were in fact ineffective, or you’re biased demographically against them’. And I think the bite of the challenge comes from something like this. Most EAs are *liberal/centre-left* in political orientation. So they probably believe that historically these movements have been of very high value and have produced important insights about the world and social reality. (Even if we also think some other things have been high value too, including perhaps some many people in these movements disliked or opposed.) So how come they act like those movements probably aren’t still doing that? What changed?
I think there are lots of good responses that can be made to this, but it’s still a challenge very much worth thinking about. More worth thinking about than gloating/getting angry over the dumbest or most annoying things the book says. (And to be clear, I do find most of the passages Richard quotes in his review pretty annoying.)
For most Effective Altruists, these movements are, at best, examples of ineffective attempts to do good; negative examples from which to prescind or correct, not political formations from which to learn, with which to create coalition, or to join.′
I think that this would be an accurate characterization of early effective altruism which was explicitly pushing back against these kinds of interventions.
I suspect what happened is as follows:
Those EAs most focused on high-quality evidence are reluctant to switch from GiveWell/ACE interventions to political interventions because they are very challenging to evaluate.
Those EAs who are most focused on hits-based giving ended up becoming focused on existential risk (primarily AI Safety) and whilst drawing some lessons from left social movements, find these lessons more limited due to not falling centrally within this category[1].
Because people in EA tend to swing one way or the other pretty heavily, it means that there hasn’t been a large enough group within EA to co-ordinate much political action for the purpose of addressing poverty.
There is an exception in that animal rights folks seem more open to political interventions, but I suspect that’s related to the influence of left thought within animal rights as a whole.
Although long-termists have drawn lessons from these movements. They’re just less relevant to AI Safety than to global poverty or criminal justice reform.
Yes, fair point! Though it’s a bad sign for a book if the best thing about it is the foreword by a different author.
My overall judgment is that the book itself is not worth reading, and anyone interested in ideas from this quarter would do much better to just read David Thorstad’s commentary (which is much better, and less aggravating, than the book itself).
I agree that this book rightly asks the question whether effective altruism is not undemocratically excluding certain valuable perspectives and movements. However, I believe the book’s authors fail to provide many specific and convincing examples of people that effective altruists should listen more to (with the exception, possibly, of those who run farmed animal sanctuaries, and I must add, of those who advocate veganism to students in higher education). This is unfortunate, because I think the book’s authors are probably right when they suggest that effective altruism should listen to more diverse voices.
Your discussion of the ‘good’ in the book doesn’t mention a part of Amia’s foreword that I think is a fairly powerful critique (though far from establishing “effective altruism is bad as currently practiced” or anything that strong):
‘These [above] are some of the questions raised when the story of Effective Altruism’s success is told not by its proponents, but by those engaged in liberation struggles and justice movements that operate outside Effective Altruism’s terms. These struggles, it must be said, long predate Effective Altruism, and it is striking that Effective Altruism has not found anything very worthwhile in them: in the historically deep and ongoing movements for the rights of working-class people, nonhuman animals, people of color, Indigenous people, women, incarcerated people, disabled people, and people living under colonial and authoritarian rule. For most Effective Altruists, these movements are, at best, examples of ineffective attempts to do good; negative examples from which to prescind or correct, not political formations from which to learn, with which to create coalition, or to join.’
(Got the quote from David Thorstad’s blog: https://ineffectivealtruismblog.com/2023/02/25/the-good-it-promises-the-harm-it-does-part-1-introduction/)
Now, we can debate the extent to which this is true (most EAs are actually pretty sympathetic to animal rights activism I suspect, Open Phil. gave money to criminal justice reform etc.). But insofar as it is true, I take it the challenge is something like: ‘what’s more likely, all those movements were in fact ineffective, or you’re biased demographically against them’. And I think the bite of the challenge comes from something like this. Most EAs are *liberal/centre-left* in political orientation. So they probably believe that historically these movements have been of very high value and have produced important insights about the world and social reality. (Even if we also think some other things have been high value too, including perhaps some many people in these movements disliked or opposed.) So how come they act like those movements probably aren’t still doing that? What changed?
I think there are lots of good responses that can be made to this, but it’s still a challenge very much worth thinking about. More worth thinking about than gloating/getting angry over the dumbest or most annoying things the book says. (And to be clear, I do find most of the passages Richard quotes in his review pretty annoying.)
I think that this would be an accurate characterization of early effective altruism which was explicitly pushing back against these kinds of interventions.
I suspect what happened is as follows:
Those EAs most focused on high-quality evidence are reluctant to switch from GiveWell/ACE interventions to political interventions because they are very challenging to evaluate.
Those EAs who are most focused on hits-based giving ended up becoming focused on existential risk (primarily AI Safety) and whilst drawing some lessons from left social movements, find these lessons more limited due to not falling centrally within this category[1].
Because people in EA tend to swing one way or the other pretty heavily, it means that there hasn’t been a large enough group within EA to co-ordinate much political action for the purpose of addressing poverty.
There is an exception in that animal rights folks seem more open to political interventions, but I suspect that’s related to the influence of left thought within animal rights as a whole.
Although long-termists have drawn lessons from these movements. They’re just less relevant to AI Safety than to global poverty or criminal justice reform.
Yes, fair point! Though it’s a bad sign for a book if the best thing about it is the foreword by a different author.
My overall judgment is that the book itself is not worth reading, and anyone interested in ideas from this quarter would do much better to just read David Thorstad’s commentary (which is much better, and less aggravating, than the book itself).
I agree that this book rightly asks the question whether effective altruism is not undemocratically excluding certain valuable perspectives and movements. However, I believe the book’s authors fail to provide many specific and convincing examples of people that effective altruists should listen more to (with the exception, possibly, of those who run farmed animal sanctuaries, and I must add, of those who advocate veganism to students in higher education). This is unfortunate, because I think the book’s authors are probably right when they suggest that effective altruism should listen to more diverse voices.