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"I liked it before it was cool."
This is a phrase typically associated to hipsters and the mainstream bands they still love, but I'm now starting to think the idea has some merit. I liked EA before it was cool.
It just makes sense to take an abstract principle ("black lives matter"), a set of causes, put them into a spreadsheet and sort by (black lives saved)/(dollars spent). Maybe that works for me because to borrow a phrase from Scott, I'm a regional manager of playing with tiny numbers in spreadsheets. Or jupyter notebooks, but whatever. I liked EA before it was cool.
But now? I'm not really sure I like the current EA movement much. Just today, a far left and a far right substack I read both converged on the idea that it has been captured by the mainstream.
https://eigenrobot.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-and-its-future
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/sbf-ftx-ea-and-lt-my-reflections
I guess the example of the latter he's probably not hinting at is SBF's "effective" investment in "TRUMPLOSE".
https://external-preview.redd.it/ByiDrANZMyT2-CXazkm0rXXbXJ2bSgRTOnKDORrk9Gg.png?auto=webp&s=22c925a1be8509efa46fdef0a9a94c2822d32b0f
I can't see any plausible case this is "effective", but it's certainly the position of the rich.
For those in this community who are closer to the movements, what do you guys think is the current state of EA? It's clearly not just a bunch of weird nerds who discovered mosquito nets in uganda >> mental health for suburban teenagers anymore. But does that original core remain? Has it moved someplace new?
EA reverses normal concentric loyalties and therefore it's bad. Normally it goes family -> friends -> acquaintances -> locals -> nationals -> etc. This is the natural way of the world and how every person has operated since forever, save for the largest circles. EA, like progressives, say this is bad and that actually a random African is worth as much as your neighbour. I find this to be an abomination.
Effective charity requires accountability. This is why the church was an effective charity - you get free stuff but you also have to behave and participate. Modern government-operated versions of this have no mechanism for accountability, so big cities get to spend 2-3x the median salary per homeless person providing "charity" and end up with more and more homeless druggies every year.
Has EA yet to figure out that shipping pallets of rice to Africans only creates more Africans who need even more rice next year? Spending resources on resource sinks with no plan on how said sink will change is not effective nor is it altruistic.
No, it equalizes them. You can argue that is bad, but it is not "reversed".
The EA movement still is heads-and-shoulders over the average non-EA charity in terms of accountability.
This doesn't match my experience with churches at all. For instance, when I volunteered serving dinner and distributing food to the poor, there was literally no effort made to restrict it to good people/the congregation/etc.
Has EA ever shipped rice to Africans? Or are you simply straw-manning?
On concentric loyalties, the circles grow exponentially larger. The chance that your inner few circles will happen to contain most effective causes are basically nil. If all the resources are going to the outer rings, the loyalties are effectively reversed.
What does EA do to hold its beneficiaries accountable that others don't? I was not saying that they are worse, they just aren't better from what I know. Churches now don't have nearly enough cultural capital to make and demands, but in times where it's volunteers serving their local community, guys would absolutely be expected to maintain a certain level of decorum and respect, lest service be denied. There's also more reason for the recipients to do this. They are interacting with real people they know, not salaried representatives of the government or other massive entity.
Their population started exploding when the shipments started flowing. Are you disputing that food AID generates more Africans? That seems straightforward.
The most obvious example is GiveWell re-evaluating its charities ~annually and periodically removing charities from its recommendations. GiveWell publishes its reasoning and provides spreadsheets where you can plug in your own numbers. Evidence Action also cut its busing program after finding it wasn't effective enough. You can argue that GiveWell is, itself, largely unaccountable, but I'd argue a meta-charity rating the effectiveness of the concrete-charities is a good deal of greater accountability than almost any other non-profit.
No, I'm disputing that Effective Altruism shipped rice to Africa, which you implied in your previous comment. If you didn't intend to imply that EA was doing it, what was the point of that last paragraph?
GiveWell's top charities are:
Medicine to prevent malaria
Nets to prevent malaria
Supplements to prevent vitamin A deficiency [in Africa]
Cash incentives for routine childhood vaccines [in Africa]
I'll admit that this is not "sending pallets of rice," but it's very similar. They are providing supplies that produce more Africans who need more supplies. Their top one is "$3500 per life saved". But if saving a life also means creating 2-3 more lives, should the cost not actually be infinite? By accountability I don't mean for the charities, e.g. against theft. I mean accountability for the recipients. If I offer someone a couch to sleep on, there is an expectation that the person is working on finding their own place to stay. What are Africans doing to deal with malaria themselves, such that there is a foreseeable end to the program? Does anything happen if they don't follow through?
There are important distinctions you are eliding.
For instance, malaria nets (and deworming) have significant positive externalities.
But, more importantly, you are employing a double standard: expect individual accountability for your people; you expect group accountability for those people.
What exactly is an individual African supposed to do to "deal with malaria themselves"? With vitamin A deficiency?
[ Edit: likewise, where is your concern that the friend sleeping on your couch will be more likely to have kids, propagating their... issues ]
An accountable way to do the same thing would be to fund a company that manufactures the mosquito nets or malaria medication in Africa, staffed by Africans. Once at breakeven, turn over ownership. Job done. If those things are too difficult to manufacture, stick with importing/distribution, but sell the product for money. If nobody will pay for it, then maybe it's not worth as much as GiveWell is paying for it.
Virtually the entire point of altruistic charity is to give people things they couldn't otherwise afford themselves. That is, distributing goods/services that aren't otherwise profitable.
But even if you don't care about that, malaria nets have positive externalities, which means even a myopic free-market promoter should see the obvious value here.
Finally, again, why the double standard? You don't ask churches why they don't set up farms instead of staff food kitchens. You might retort that EAs claim to care about effectiveness, but you have given no actual evidence to think your plan is better from a utilitarian or NPV perspective.
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