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Notes -
"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.
I don't think progressives do this. They simply put certain tribal loyalties higher than those a conservative might. Unlike EA, progressives value the life of a single American black criminal far more than they value of thousands of black Ugandan children.
Progressives value any group who they can offer their enemies' stuff to in exchange for loyalty, but I digress. Haidt and co. did seven studies that effectively show the concentric loyalties are literally reversed.
I don't interpret this literally, because they don't behave like they prefer black criminals over their parents. However, one of their tribal signals is that they say they do. I do believe they hate their parents. That's a common thread, along with no kids.
I believe that progressives will say they are universalists if you explicitly ask them and their answer has no consequence beyond emotional.
However I believe that in terms of either money donations or choice of causes to give attention to, progressives are not. Many EAs are, however.
They aren't universalists though, they like white people less. White liberals are the only group that rates their own race lower than others.
If they say they are universalists, ask them if that means one should treat white and black people equally.
The usual claim is that white people already have it plenty good, so deprioritizing them is just moving towards a more level playing field.
Yeah, but they would still not say yes if you stipulated, "what if white people were equal to blacks in wealth per capita and/or a minority"? They sure don't seem to have much love for white South Africans.
They would fight the hypothetical.
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