Tucker Carlson when writing a similar critique of effective altruism even used “people” in scare quotes to indicate how sub-human he considers charity beneficiaries to be, just because they happened to be born in a different country and never meet a rich person. Amy Schiller says that people you don’t have a relationship with are just “abstract objects”.
I think you completely misinterpreted these people as saying the opposite of what they were actually saying. Here’s what Carlson said right before his comment:
Every time someone talks about “effective altruism” or helping people he’s never met and never will meet, and the consequence of that help will never be recorded, and he doesn’t even care what those consequences are—that is the most dangerous person in the world.
And what Schiller said right after her comment:
There’s this like flattening and objectification of people that comes with giving philosophies that really see people as only their vulnerability, only their need only their desperation, that you then the hero donor can save for just $1 a day...
Their criticism of EA is precisely that they think EAs can’t see people far away as “real, flesh-and-blood human”, just numbers in a spreadsheet. I think that sentiment is inaccurate and that following it with “and that’s why donating money to people far away is problematic!” makes no sense, but we should at least try to represent the criticism accurately.
I think you completely misinterpreted these people as saying the opposite of what they were actually saying. Here’s what Carlson said right before his comment:
And what Schiller said right after her comment:
Their criticism of EA is precisely that they think EAs can’t see people far away as “real, flesh-and-blood human”, just numbers in a spreadsheet. I think that sentiment is inaccurate and that following it with “and that’s why donating money to people far away is problematic!” makes no sense, but we should at least try to represent the criticism accurately.