Hi! My name is Henry Howard. Iâm a doctor in Australia. Iâm giving 50% of my income to charity all 2021 to normalise taking only what we need and Giving What We Can. You can find me at:
I love the principle of doing altruism effectively but I am hesitant to align myself with the Effective Altruism movement.
Iâm worried about the Effective Altruism movementâs shifting focus to longtermism which I suspect is a âPascalâs muggingâ by a utility monster (the monster being the theoretical quintillions of future humans) and which I worry is making the movement look unhinged, impractical and is limiting its appeal and impact.
Iâm mostly vegan but Iâm concerned about overemphasis on animal welfare. I feel that the Effective Altruism movement overvalues animal well-being vs human well-being. I also feel it ignores that improving human welfare is an avenue to improving animal welfare (people who are struggling donât have room to think about whether their chickens are free range).
Welcome! And well done to donate 50% â I only know a few people with ordinary jobs whoâve done this, and theyâre all among my favorite individuals. Youâre doing incredible good.
I feel that the Effective Altruism movement overvalues animal well-being vs human well-being.
The EA movement doesnât really have its own values, aside from a few baseline principles â itâs a collection of individuals who agree on the principles but differ on many other things. If you were to ask something like âhow valuable is saving a chicken from a year of constant suffering?â, people in the movement would give you a vast range of answers.
If you think that a particular estimate youâve seen from some EA-aligned organization is wrong, the EA Forum is a great place to make that argument!
I also feel it ignores that improving human welfare is an avenue to improving animal welfare (people who are struggling donât have room to think about whether their chickens are free range).
It seems unlikely on its face that spending money on human welfare will do much for animals, relative to the incredible efficiency of e.g. cage-free campaigns. I donât think animal advocates ignore these side effects (I think almost everyone would agree that thereâs a link between economic prosperity and moral circle expansion). But I do think that theyâd judge the side effects as very minor in the grand scheme of things.
If you think the side effects arenât minor⌠sounds like another potential Forum post!
Note that thereâs been some conversation about the direct opposite idea â that wealthier people eat more animal products, which means that improving human welfare might lead to additional animal suffering (meat consumption has skyrocketed around the world in recent decades).
I havenât seen people actually use this as a reason not to support human-focused charities â again, this âside effectâ is very small â but I think it illustrates how difficult and complicated these questions can be.
Very impressed by your website :-) What did you use to make it? What is the âartistic motivationâ behind creating a mostly realistic investment firm website?
As you say, I personally donât like labels too much. But that doesnât mean you canât learn here :-) Wish you the best with your growth!
Thanks! Itâs mainly Bootstrap on top of some free website templates. Iâm interested by how design and marketing can influence people into thinking something has authority, weight, believability.
Thank you for writing this: Iâm interested by how design and marketing can influence people into thinking something has authority, weight, believability.
I am also interested in this, but it was not quite that clear in my mind until I read your phrasing of it.
Beyond this, I think the mapping between the (structure & content of a question) and (the answers to the question that people give) is very interesting. Studying this idea could be useful if one wants to know how survey questions can be optimized to reduce the disparity between subjective evaluations of a behavior or action and the answererâs actual behavior. Or it could be useful if one wants to know which question phrasings or sequence of questions can most accurately evaluate how depressed or fulfilled a person is, across their mood distribution and across general human mood distributions.
Thatâs a really cool interest :D What have you done so far to measure how design and marketing can influence people into thinking something has authority?
Hi! My name is Henry Howard. Iâm a doctor in Australia. Iâm giving 50% of my income to charity all 2021 to normalise taking only what we need and Giving What We Can. You can find me at:
website: henryach.com/âworkathon
twitter: @henryachoward
I love the principle of doing altruism effectively but I am hesitant to align myself with the Effective Altruism movement.
Iâm worried about the Effective Altruism movementâs shifting focus to longtermism which I suspect is a âPascalâs muggingâ by a utility monster (the monster being the theoretical quintillions of future humans) and which I worry is making the movement look unhinged, impractical and is limiting its appeal and impact.
Iâm mostly vegan but Iâm concerned about overemphasis on animal welfare. I feel that the Effective Altruism movement overvalues animal well-being vs human well-being. I also feel it ignores that improving human welfare is an avenue to improving animal welfare (people who are struggling donât have room to think about whether their chickens are free range).
Welcome! And well done to donate 50% â I only know a few people with ordinary jobs whoâve done this, and theyâre all among my favorite individuals. Youâre doing incredible good.
The EA movement doesnât really have its own values, aside from a few baseline principles â itâs a collection of individuals who agree on the principles but differ on many other things. If you were to ask something like âhow valuable is saving a chicken from a year of constant suffering?â, people in the movement would give you a vast range of answers.
If you think that a particular estimate youâve seen from some EA-aligned organization is wrong, the EA Forum is a great place to make that argument!
It seems unlikely on its face that spending money on human welfare will do much for animals, relative to the incredible efficiency of e.g. cage-free campaigns. I donât think animal advocates ignore these side effects (I think almost everyone would agree that thereâs a link between economic prosperity and moral circle expansion). But I do think that theyâd judge the side effects as very minor in the grand scheme of things.
If you think the side effects arenât minor⌠sounds like another potential Forum post!
Note that thereâs been some conversation about the direct opposite idea â that wealthier people eat more animal products, which means that improving human welfare might lead to additional animal suffering (meat consumption has skyrocketed around the world in recent decades).
I havenât seen people actually use this as a reason not to support human-focused charities â again, this âside effectâ is very small â but I think it illustrates how difficult and complicated these questions can be.
Very impressed by your website :-) What did you use to make it? What is the âartistic motivationâ behind creating a mostly realistic investment firm website?
As you say, I personally donât like labels too much. But that doesnât mean you canât learn here :-) Wish you the best with your growth!
Thanks! Itâs mainly Bootstrap on top of some free website templates. Iâm interested by how design and marketing can influence people into thinking something has authority, weight, believability.
Thank you for writing this: Iâm interested by how design and marketing can influence people into thinking something has authority, weight, believability.
I am also interested in this, but it was not quite that clear in my mind until I read your phrasing of it.
Beyond this, I think the mapping between the (structure & content of a question) and (the answers to the question that people give) is very interesting. Studying this idea could be useful if one wants to know how survey questions can be optimized to reduce the disparity between subjective evaluations of a behavior or action and the answererâs actual behavior. Or it could be useful if one wants to know which question phrasings or sequence of questions can most accurately evaluate how depressed or fulfilled a person is, across their mood distribution and across general human mood distributions.
Thatâs a really cool interest :D What have you done so far to measure how design and marketing can influence people into thinking something has authority?