Very glad you’re emphasizing that last question! I can easily see the narrative shift from ‘SBF/FTX did unethical stuff’ to ‘EA people think the end always justify the means’, even though shallow utilitarian calculus that ignores all second-order effects rarely holds up (e.g. doctors killing patients if they can save more lives by harvesting their organs being normalized would lead to a paranoid dystopia where everyone fears hospitals. Even the purest of utilitarians shouldn’t support this).
However, for someone less familiar with EA this overgeneralization is very easy to make, so I think we should be more explicit about refuting this type of reasoning.
Edit: Good to see stuff is being written about this!
The overgeneralisation isextremely easy to make. Just search “effective altruism” on twitter right now. :’( (n.b., not recommended if you care about your own emotional well-being.)
Very glad you’re emphasizing that last question! I can easily see the narrative shift from ‘SBF/FTX did unethical stuff’ to ‘EA people think the end always justify the means’, even though shallow utilitarian calculus that ignores all second-order effects rarely holds up (e.g. doctors killing patients if they can save more lives by harvesting their organs being normalized would lead to a paranoid dystopia where everyone fears hospitals. Even the purest of utilitarians shouldn’t support this).
However, for someone less familiar with EA this overgeneralization is very easy to make, so I think we should be more explicit about refuting this type of reasoning.
Edit: Good to see stuff is being written about this!
The overgeneralisation isextremely easy to make. Just search “effective altruism” on twitter right now. :’( (n.b., not recommended if you care about your own emotional well-being.)