This is a great talk. This and another recent post by Gemma Paterson highlight the importance of standing up for EA and funding it.
This is even more important today, in the context of the SBF trial, when it feels like EA is under attack from many sides.
In an ideal world, people would be supportive or, at worst, indifferent towards a group of people trying to make the world better and safer for everyone.
But in our bizarre world, no good deed goes unpunished, and the SBF affair seems to have put new wind in the sails of those who would find fault with EA. I couldn’t resist doing an internet search for the term you mentioned, “Defective Altruism”, and predictably I found more, and more recent, articles along a similar theme, referring to EA as “elitist” or even “repugnant”. I am purposefully not including links to these diatribes.
But we need to be aware that this mentality is out there, and it’s impacting the narrative that many people hear.
I think it’s important to realise that, outside of this community, many people either have no idea what EA is, or have only heard one of these negative views, often ridiculing an idea they are intentionally misunderstanding.
It’s rarely a good idea to try to argue with someone whose views are the opposite of yours, especially if you believe their views are misguided. Most people with negative views of EA are not bad people. But they may have been raised to view charity the way I was raised to view it—with a deep focus on the giver rather than the receiver.
Growing up as a Christian, I was taught that what matters is how much I personally sacrifice to support a good cause. If I suffer, all the better. Whether the net result of my suffering makes a difference is almost an afterthought. This is absolutely not to say that Christians did not care about the poor or the sick—I had so many wonderful role-models, including my parents and several priests who did great work to help the poor. In the Bible, Jesus Himself cares deeply for the poor, yet insists that the poor man who donates a tiny amount is better than the rich man who makes a huge donation.
So when EA’s come and put the focus firmly on the impact, we are challenging some very deeply-held beliefs. Actually, we’re not challenging them at all, rather we’re separating two different things. We’re saying that we make no moral or ethical judgments about what or why you donate—be it time or money. We focus only on the question of how to maximise the good that you can do with that.
But in the eyes of someone raised on traditional Christian values, this can easily be misperceived—or intentionally misunderstood—as our equating more impactful donors with “morally superior” people.
Cases like SBF are extreme examples, which unfortunately get a lot of publicity. To an EA, before his fall, SBF was a great example of an effective altruist, whose altruism was doing more than 1000 average charity volunteers. Yet there he was living in extreme luxury while they struggled to survive. How could this make sense, morally?
I have even read a description of EA as being essentially a vehicle to enable mega-rich people like SBF to justify their wealth and even their criminality by claiming that they were earning to give. That the causality of this is backwards doesn’t make it less harmful when a credible journalist write that to an audience who know little of EA.
In our sound-bite world, EA is very easy to denigrate, and quite difficult to defend, because one look at the EA Forum will show the depth of thought and complex analysis that underlies EA’s positions.
In that context, I think videos like this one are wonderful. It shows a side of EA that is much closer to what people view as “charity”. It shows deep concern about people in poverty and a desire to help them. It speaks of people devoting their whole careers to doing good. It does not get tangled up in philosophical arguments, but just looks at how we can do more to help more people.
It would be great if there were a way to get this, or something similar, on TED, to help counter some of the misguided negativity and disinformation that is out there right now.
“Sam became a vegan and an effective altruism because he thought through the arguments and concluded they were correct, not because of feelings of guilt or empathy.”
There is so much in this sentence that captures the entire EA / non-EA division. Most especially, though, it captures the general public’s misunderstanding of what empathy is.
First is the implication that “following the arguments” means you don’t have empathy. This is so patently false. If anything, EA’s have more empathy—so much empathy that we want to do the most effective things for those who need help, rather than the things that give us personal satisfaction or assuage our guilty feelings.
The non-EA would say “I saw a blind person today, with a guide dog. I felt so much empathy that I decided to donate $50K to the charity that trains guide dogs.” (net result: one more guide dog trained for a person in a wealthy country, but massive feelings of self-satisfaction for the owner, who may even get to personally meet the dog and get thanked by its new owner).
The EA sees the same thing, and thinks “Imagine how terrible it must be to be blind and not even have a guide dog, maybe living in a country which doesn’t accommodate blind people the way the US does.” And, after some research, donates $50K to a charity that prevents blindness, saving the sight of maybe 1000 people in a poor country.
But still, in the eyes of many, the non-EA has shown more empathy, while the EA has just “followed the arguments”. People think empathy is about a warm, fuzzy feeling they get when they help someone. But it’s not. Empathy is about getting inside someone’s head, seeing the world from their perspective and understanding what they need.
Second is the focus on the giver rather than the receiver.
The EA understands that a person in need needs help. They do not need empathy or sympathy or guilt. They need help. If they get that help from a cynical crypto-billionaire or from a generous kid who gives away her birthday savings, it makes no difference to them.
The non-EA focuses on the generosity of the kid, giving up toys and chocolate to help (and that is wonderful and fully to be encouraged) and on the calculated logic of the billionaire who will not even notice the money donated.
The EA focuses on the receiver, and on whether that person’s needs are met. This is far closer to true empathy.
I wonder if there’s a way for EA’s to fight back against our critics by explaining (in a positive way) that what we do and the way we think is empathy to the power of n, that the suggestion that we don’t have empathy is utterly false.