EA/OP does give large amounts of resources to areas that others find hard to care about, in a way which does seem more earnest & well-meaning than many other people in society
The alternative framework in which to operate is probably capitalism, which is also not perfectly aligned with human values either.
There is no evil mustache twirling mastermind. To the extent these dynamics arise, they do so out of some reasonably understandable constraints, like having a tight-knit group of people
In general it’s just pretty harsh to just write a list of negative things about someone/some group
It’s much easier to point out flaws than to operate in the world
There are many things to do in the world, and limited competent operators to throw at problems. Some areas will just see less love & talent directed to them. There is some meta-prioritization going on in a way which broadly does seem kind of reasonable.
Another important caveat is that the criticisms you mention are not common from people evaluating the effective altruism framework from the outside when allocating their donations or orienting their careers.
The criticisms you mention come from people who have spent a lot of time in the community, and usually (but not exclusively) from those of us who have been rejected from job applications, denied funding, or had bad social experiences/cultural fit with the social community.
This doesn’t necessarily make them less valid, but seems to be a meaningfully different topic from what this post is about. Someone altruistically deciding how much money to give to which charity is unlikely to be worried about whether they will be seduced into believing that they would be cherished members of a community.
Note that I do agree with many of your criticisms of the community[1], but I believe it’s important to remember that the vast majority of people evaluating effective altruism are not in the EA social community and don’t care much about it, and we should probably flag our potential bias when criticizing an organization after being denied funding or rejected from it (while still expressing that useful criticism.)
I would also add Ben Kuhn’s “pretending to try” critique from 11 years ago, which I assume shares some points with your unpublished “My experience with a Potemkin Effective Altruism group”
Here are some caveats/counterpoints:
EA/OP does give large amounts of resources to areas that others find hard to care about, in a way which does seem more earnest & well-meaning than many other people in society
The alternative framework in which to operate is probably capitalism, which is also not perfectly aligned with human values either.
There is no evil mustache twirling mastermind. To the extent these dynamics arise, they do so out of some reasonably understandable constraints, like having a tight-knit group of people
In general it’s just pretty harsh to just write a list of negative things about someone/some group
It’s much easier to point out flaws than to operate in the world
There are many things to do in the world, and limited competent operators to throw at problems. Some areas will just see less love & talent directed to them. There is some meta-prioritization going on in a way which broadly does seem kind of reasonable.
Another important caveat is that the criticisms you mention are not common from people evaluating the effective altruism framework from the outside when allocating their donations or orienting their careers.
The criticisms you mention come from people who have spent a lot of time in the community, and usually (but not exclusively) from those of us who have been rejected from job applications, denied funding, or had bad social experiences/cultural fit with the social community.
This doesn’t necessarily make them less valid, but seems to be a meaningfully different topic from what this post is about. Someone altruistically deciding how much money to give to which charity is unlikely to be worried about whether they will be seduced into believing that they would be cherished members of a community.
People evaluating effective altruism “from the outside” instead mention things like the paternalism and unintended consequences, that it doesn’t care about biodiversity, that quantification is perilous, that socialism is better, or that capitalism is better.
Note that I do agree with many of your criticisms of the community[1], but I believe it’s important to remember that the vast majority of people evaluating effective altruism are not in the EA social community and don’t care much about it, and we should probably flag our potential bias when criticizing an organization after being denied funding or rejected from it (while still expressing that useful criticism.)
I would also add Ben Kuhn’s “pretending to try” critique from 11 years ago, which I assume shares some points with your unpublished “My experience with a Potemkin Effective Altruism group”