I found effective altruism in July 2021. Read everything I could, learned as much as I could. Pediatrician working in low resource settings, now completed Masters in global health policy, because I wanted to help more people.
LiaH
Karma: 138
I understood effective altruism is about doing the most good for the most people (sentient beings). The purpose of capitalism is control of industry by private owners, for profit. I cannot reconcile the two purposes if fairness/equity is considered.
How is effective altruism compatible with capitalism?
LiaH’s Quick takes
Yes, I agree on the point that interventions are best assessed with cost-benefit analysis, rather than propping up inefficient institutions. I was not necessarily suggesting support for WHO, only indicating that the purported leader in global health is spending more time fundraising than leading.
I, perhaps mistakenly, thought EA, particularly Open Phil, was about funding high risk, low yield, but fat tail causes, vs the “sure thing” that Give Well funds.
For pandemic risk, what about funding campaigns to back the TRIPs waiver proposal for all pandemic vaccines?
For people of conflict-affected countries, what about supporting impartial organizations which can access people in need? Advocate for impartial access? The latter would scale well, if effective, because the entire southern Afghanistan is unvaccinated against every childhood disease, not just COVID.
I agree with you, when the root cause of suffering is political, the solution is complicated, and improving the political system would be costly and ineffective. This is why I think the creativity of the EA community could be so beneficial, by seeking other solutions.
Thank you, I have read the Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio and listened to Alexander Berger’s podcast, but I am still left with the question, are they doing enough? Are their causes sufficiently broad? Have they left stones unturned? What innovative cause has been missed? I can’t help but think this is a too-easy dismissal of the circumstance, and risks missing opportunities to save lives in very effective cause areas
A Case for Improving Global Equity as Radical Longtermism
Interesting metaphor. More interesting is that your summary of Equity as the only endeavour on this ship which does not have a drawback, and which is supportive of the other efforts; could Equity support an Afghan girl to be a gifted Navigator, or more athletic Rowers to move the ship forward? Why would we not try? At the moment there are three Captains who are bickering
Yes! All this, and it was better summarized by you, thank you. I am looking for these answers.
Yes, these are all sound counterpoints. Together, they suggest the idea is at least, neglected. I think your point 2 was also made by Stefan_Schubert in a comment above. I would be very interested to see research in the area, if there is any. I agree your points 1&3 are a problem if the number of altruistic people were finite, but what if everyone behaved altruistically, to the benefit of others? To the point that it would not matter if some people chose to donate to seeing eye dog charities?
I can appreciate your argument that promoting general altruism might not fit under EA banner, specifically because it lacks the “effective” intent, but I would argue that it could be one of the “hits based”, fat-tailed investments EA has been seeking. What if it were tractable and scalable to make people generally nicer to each other, and desire to help each other, non-human animals, the environment, and the future, impartially?
I agree! With both your points on renaming it “altruistic intent”, and the reasons behind.
I thought perhaps improving altruistic intent must be somewhere under the EA radar, but in the very superficial reading I have done to date, I had not found it. I will look more specifically now at broad longtermism. To be honest, I was also hoping the EA community had more skills in persuasion and politics, and was already working on it.
Finally, thank you for acknowledging my neophyte attempts on a front page post. It took a lot of internal debate and self-talk to write it ;)
Thanks for your comment, and thanks for the excellent paper! I don’t disagree with any of it. I am, perhaps, disappointed that you feel improving general altruism is too difficult to approach. It was a question about which I have no information, so I would be very interested to read any literature you have available on the attempts and failures to do so.
Regarding your second point, I also categorically agree that IF the number of altruistic people is limited, their efforts should always be directed to the most effective. I just cannot get past the (perhaps idealist) idea that if more people were persuaded to increase their “moral expansiveness”, per your paper, there would be no basis for the disparity/discord/conflict we see within and between races, genders, abilities, religious affiliation, nations, etc, and would simultaneously improve our general desire to contribute to help others.
Agree with your concern that waiving IP rights is disincentive for pharmaceutical industry to R&D future medicines and vaccines, but it does not negate the fact that vaccines in a pandemic are a global public good. It is about human rights.
Regarding the financial status of the vaccine companies, half of Pfizer’s record-setting revenue in 2021 were from their vaccine.
Although I agree fundamentally with the OP’s suggestion for a fully public vaccine development, a concession might be a one year limit on TRIPs patents for vaccine, allowing profit before sharing the tech.