Thoughts on Effective Altruism?

[Ajo822]

I’m wondering what other members think of the Effective Altruism movement. For those unfamiliar, you can read more about the movement on their website here: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ Basically, it’s premised on doing good better (“more effectively”), and it uses economic principles and utilitarianism to determine which causes, funds, and charities have the greatest impact on human wellbeing.

The movement is not without its flaws. Personally, I think it relies too heavily on the modus operandi and may do more good by stepping outside of such paradigms. Also, the movement took a big hit when Sam Bankman Fried, basically their poster child, was convicted.

Nonetheless, I think the movement may be helpful for some to consider, particularly those who
may be lost about how to be more charitable with their resources (https://www.givewell.org/) and with their time (https://80000hours.org/).

[Ryumon]

I only learned about this last year, reading a biography of a philosopher who was involved in it. Aside from the fact that it approaches life and happiness in a cold, calculated manner, it is rife with controversy such as having conmen involved (https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ent-in-trouble), being "a school of thought built on extreme altruism provide ideological cover for racism and sexism," (https://www.newstatesman.com/long-re...ctive-altruism), and other things.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

[Jundo]

I will just say, without knowing details (I will explore the resources provided) that I am for helping people in the most truly effective ways, not merely what we think effective.

One question: If we spend on the topics he suggest, what happens to the other charities who will not receive money?

As a new member, you may wish to know that my personal plan for saving this world involves changing human nature, and is a bit radical. Please check out my talk here. A pipedream now, but fast becoming reality ...

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/treeleaf/the-buddhism-of-the-future-forum-building-the-future-buddha/525129-my-speech-in-taiwan-at-the-buddhism-science-and-the-future-conference

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

PS- I may move this thread eventually into our "Engaged" Center so that we may keep the discussion.

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/treeleaf/practices/engaged-charitable-projects-center

[Ryumon]

The whole point of EA is to determine effectiveness in a purely statistical way, which is the main criticism. It appeals to people such as libertarians and those who are less feeling and more calculating.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

[Matt Johnson]

Reminds me a bit of this company Colossal.org. The baker at our Cafe entered into one of their competitions called the greatest Baker (of her own volition). It appeared that she was becoming quite close to the top, but it was never clear how many contestants there were overall. Meanwhile, she was trying to get all of her friends and all of her friends friends to spend money voting for her. Keep in mind the median household income where I live is less than $30,000 CAD and a lot of these people didn't really have much money to give, but they wanted to show their support for their friend.

Now, this money was going charity, but it was a charity in the United States that really didn't need money from poor people living in Canada and a significant portion of the profits were kept by the company (like 30%). Colossal is a B corp which is a fairly hard certification to get but the fact is these B Corps still have greed as their engine. Oh and our baker did not win.

Then theres Frederick Lenz. Lenz was a controversial figure, particularly due to allegations that he financially exploited his followers. He promoted his own version of American Buddhism and garnered a significant following, but faced accusations of using funds from his sangha to support his projects and personal lifestyle.

But he also created a fund that pretty much anybody with an interest in Buddhism can apply for money and potentially do something good with it.

Is it wrong to use that money? is it wrong to support colossal? I don't know... but I definitely have some hesitation...

_/\_

sat/ah

Matt

[Kokuu]

Then theres Frederick Lenz. Lenz was a controversial figure, particularly due to allegations that he financially exploited his followers. He promoted his own version of American Buddhism and garnered a significant following, but faced accusations of using funds from his sangha to support his projects and personal lifestyle.

But he also created a fund that pretty much anybody with an interest in Buddhism can apply for money and potentially do something good with it.

Is it wrong to use that money? is it wrong to support colossal? I don't know... but I definitely have some hesitation...

Yes, this is a conversation we have been having due to the SZBA having funded their year long series on women's voices in Zen through the Lenz Foundation. I havthe e been attending that series, which is great, but the association of Lenz's name definitely feels more than a litrle problematic. I had a friend who was hugely involved with Lenz during the 1980s and 90s so got to hear some inside stories which match up with a lot of the criticisms levelled at Lenz.

in the environmental movement we have similar controversies over whether to take money from fossil fuel companies to fund green events. It is clearly greenwashing but environmental organisations are not awash with money so is it good to take some money from Shell or BP and use it for positive purposes, even knowing it is going to give them positive publicity as a result? I must admit I don't have the answer or a way of calculating net good but it is something to be aware of.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Ryumon]

The perfect is the enemy of the good.



Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

[Kokuu]

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

This is also very true. However, I think we have to be aware of when we are effectively doing PR for groups that we might not want to give position promotion.

Gassho
kokuu

[Tai Shi]

I will make this brief. My correction f how I respond to my wife is an indication of my softened behavior. I am more restrained, and thoughtful in how I treat friends, and aquaintances, so new, a solution to my pain which in the past was softened like chalk from narcotics, nearly all narcotics are gone exceppt a very small amount prescribed by conservative doctors. I contribut money to a couple of orginizations. Ihis is the extent of my giving. Softened behavior, and $10 to $20 each month. I do my best, and if it is not enough, I do my best, and for the next 6 mo to a year, I will feel much less pain. The the cycle repeats. I am softer.
Gassho _/|\_
Tai Shi, peaceful poetry

[Ajo822]

I will just say, without knowing details (I will explore the resources provided) that I am for helping people in the most truly effective ways, not merely what we think effective.

One question: If we spend on the topics he suggest, what happens to the other charities who will not receive money?

As a new member, you may wish to know that my personal plan for saving this world involves changing human nature, and is a bit radical. Please check out my talk here. A pipedream now, but fast becoming reality ...

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/treeleaf/the-buddhism-of-the-future-forum-building-the-future-buddha/525129-my-speech-in-taiwan-at-the-buddhism-science-and-the-future-conference

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

PS- I may move this thread eventually into our "Engaged" Center so that we may keep the discussion.

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/tre...rojects-center

Many thanks for sharing your talk. There is a lot of food for thought here, and I think there is some alignment between EA’s concerns about existential risks and your concerns. With the developments in tech, it seems to be the case that bad actors will have more power than ever, and that’s worrying.

In answer to your question, I can’t speak for the entire EA movement, wherein there’s a lot of diversity of opinion, but I imagine they would try to avoid such a scenario. Once everyone is donating to the same charities/causes, it would no longer be as neglected and the law of diminishing returns would prompt EA leaders to find additional causes.

I’m completely OK with the topic getting moved or even deleted. I recognize not everyone will agree with the movement’s ideas/ideals, but hopefully others may find it useful to varying extents.

[Ajo822]

I only learned about this last year, reading a biography of a philosopher who was involved in it. Aside from the fact that it approaches life and happiness in a cold, calculated manner, it is rife with controversy such as having conmen involved (https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ent-in-trouble), being "a school of thought built on extreme altruism provide ideological cover for racism and sexism," (https://www.newstatesman.com/long-re...ctive-altruism), and other things.

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

Sat Lah

I think the criticisms and distrust you have for the EA movement are fair. They can often be an apologist for the wrongs of neoliberalism and late-stage capitalism. And utilitarianism’s big drawback is its running roughshod over the individual and minority groups. Both of these make me uncomfortable to put it mildly. But there is a but…

Their way of framing “effectiveness” did help me when it came to my charitable decision making. Particularly, they focus on 1) scalability, 2) how neglected an issue is, 3) how to overcome current bottlenecks. Though they are cold and calculating, this can actually be a positive in certain situations. I believe Matt’s example of Colossal is actually what EA is seeking to prevent/minimize.

I’m particularly keen on EA’s emphasis on existential risks. They are proponents of nuclear disarmament, put a lot of research into AI and its risks, and accurately predicted our unpreparedness for pandemics long before COVID. In my capacity as an educator, I find their research useful in introducing new global issues to my students and giving them another framework with which to consider their futures.

Gassho,
Alex

[Matt Johnson]

I think the criticisms and distrust you have for the EA movement are fair. They can often be an apologist for the wrongs of neoliberalism and late-stage capitalism. And utilitarianism’s big drawback is its running roughshod over the individual and minority groups. Both of these make me uncomfortable to put it mildly. But there is a but…

Their way of framing “effectiveness” did help me when it came to my charitable decision making. Particularly, they focus on 1) scalability, 2) how neglected an issue is, 3) how to overcome current bottlenecks. Though they are cold and calculating, this can actually be a positive in certain situations. I believe Matt’s example of Colossal is actually what EA is seeking to prevent/minimize.

I’m particularly keen on EA’s emphasis on existential risks. They are proponents of nuclear disarmament, put a lot of research into AI and its risks, and accurately predicted our unpreparedness for pandemics long before COVID. In my capacity as an educator, I find their research useful in introducing new global issues to my students and giving them another framework with which to consider their futures.

Gassho,
Alex

Yes I agree. Both my examples do not fit the description of EA... As someone who has started a few social enterprises, I can attest to the sense that at many points I felt like I was spinning my wheels and making no difference, and being completely inefficient.

I think my biggest knee-jerk reaction to EA is the reoccurring sense of attempts at monoculture/monopoly (The diversity and minority issue you alluded to). (You also rightly pointed to end-stage capitalism which is really the issue of winner takes all Monopoly).

Just because something is small, niche and inefficient doesn't mean that it does not serve its ecosystem, maintaining its diversity and dare I say beauty. Really a lot of social enterprises (and a lot of Zen centres now that I think of it) are totally inefficient and would never survive an EA analysis of being worthwhile. Chains of cause and effect are hard to fathom, especially since some may bear fruit many centuries down the road.

I am interested by this concern that EA is showing towards existential risks which I probably share. On the existential side of things, I rather believe that small, simple vulnerable and nimble is the way to go in the face of existential risk.

This is sounds like a conversation for another time though. Very interesting stuff! Thank you for bringing it up.

_/\_

sat/ah

Matt

[Jundo]

I recalled that I recently read an article in Wired about this, which was a bit critical of some aspects.

https://www.wired.com/story/deaths-of-effective-altruism/

I personally might dispute some of the criticisms raised by this writer, because (1) even though actions might have unintended consequences, doing nothing or little are also bound to have unintended consequences, and we simply must intelligently research and make our choices' on which actions/no actions to take, (2) the costs of doing nothing ... and failing to think outside the box ... are too high and too risky given the existential threats we face that do require such innovative actions and creative thinking; and (3) "longtermism" should not be confused with thinking about the near future and trying to consider solutions for world problems which may require research and investment today (My book advocates such research on technologies which may come online in the very near future to treat a variety of problems ranging from violence in anger, to apathy in the face of strangers' poverty, to moderation of our inner drives toward excess consumption and addiction, all of which are in harmony with Buddhist ethical values.)

However, what do you think?

The article says this:

... In 1998, with a freshly minted Harvard PhD, I was playing with the ideas of Peter Singer, today’s most influential living philosopher. The idea of Singer that excited me was that each of us should give a lot of money to help poor people abroad. His “shallow pond” thought experiment shows why. If you saw a child drowning in a shallow pond, you’d feel obliged to rescue her even if that meant ruining your new shoes. But then, Singer said, you can save the life of a starving child overseas by donating to charity what new shoes would cost. And you can save the life of another child by donating instead of buying a new shirt, and another instead of dining out. The logic of your beliefs requires you to send nearly all your money overseas, where it will go farthest to save the most lives. After all, what could we do with our money that’s more important than saving people’s lives? That’s the most famous argument in modern philosophy.

...

"Say you had a million dollars,” I asked when they’d [experienced charity workers] started eating. “Which charity would you give it to?” They looked at me. “No, really,” I said, “which charity saves the most lives?” “None of them,” said a young Australian woman to laughter. Out came story after story of the daily frustrations of their jobs. Corrupt local officials, clueless charity bosses, the daily grind of cajoling poor people to try something new without pissing them off. By the time we got to dessert, these good people, devoting their young lives to poverty relief, were talking about lying in bed forlorn some nights, hoping their projects were doing more good than harm.

... Extremely poor people live in complex environments—just as complex as our own, and usually more chaotic. Sending in extra resources can have all sorts of effects beyond what a close-up shows. And that’s the real problem in finding “what works.” Say I give some money to a charity that promises to better the health of poor people in Africa or Asia. And let’s say that, in a close-up view, it works. What else might my money have done? Lots of things. Maybe bringing in the charity will boost the power of a local potentate. Maybe the charity’s donated medicines will just free up money in the budget of an oppressive regime. Maybe the project will weaken the social contract between the people and their government—after all, why would the state care for the health of its citizens, and why would citizens even demand health care from the state, if rich foreigners are paying for it?

... It took me, a philosopher, years to learn what might be obvious to you. The “close-up” effects of pills or bed nets are easy to advertise, but the side effects—political, economic, psychological—are just as important. Most important, of course, will be what the local people think about interventions into their lives. Yet their very poverty means they can’t hold anyone accountable for harms they suffer. I drafted an article on what I’d learned about aid and called it “Poverty Is No Pond.” Making responsible choices, I came to realize, means accepting well-known risks of harm. Which absolutely does not mean that “aid doesn’t work.” There are many good people in aid working hard on the ground, often making tough calls as they weigh benefits and costs. Giving money to aid can be admirable too—doctors, after all, still prescribe drugs with known side effects. Yet what no one in aid should say, I came to think, is that all they’re doing is improving poor people’s lives.

...

Just as I was finishing my work on aid, a young philosopher from Oxford gave a lecture at my university, saying that all he was doing was improving poor people’s lives. This was Toby Ord, who was just then starting effective altruism. Like me a dozen years earlier, Ord was excited by Peter Singer’s “shallow pond” argument. What he added to it, he said, was a way of measuring how many people’s lives he could save. The simple version goes like this. Say there’s a pill that adds a year of life to anyone who takes it. If Ord gives $50 to an aid charity, it will give out 50 pills to poor foreigners. So with his donation, he has added a total of 50 years of life. And adding 50 years is like saving the life of one child drowning in a pond. So by giving $50, he has “saved the life” of one poor child.

...

That was more than a dozen years ago. Today, GiveWell highlights detailed calculations of the benefits of donations to recipients. In an estimate from 2020, for example, it calculates that a $4,500 donation to a bed nets charity in Guinea will pay for the delivery of 1,001 nets, that 79 percent of them will get used, that each net will cover 1.8 people, and so on. Factoring in a bevy of such statistical likelihoods, GiveWell now finds that $4,500 will save one person. That looks great. Yet GiveWell still does not tell visitors about the wellknown harms of aid beyond its recipients. Take the bed net charity that GiveWell has recommended for a decade. Insecticide-treated bed nets can prevent malaria, but they’re also great for catching fish. In 2016, The New York Times reported that overfishing with the nets was threatening fragile food supplies across Africa. A GiveWell blog post responded by calling the story’s evidence anecdotal and “limited,” saying its concerns “largely don’t apply” to the bed nets bought by its charity. Yet today even GiveWell’s own estimates show that almost a third of nets are not hanging over a bed when monitors first return to check on them, and GiveWell has said nothing even as more and more scientific studies have been published on the possible harms of bed nets used for fishing. ... And more broadly, GiveWell still doesn’t factor in many well-known negative effects of aid. Studies find that when charities hire health workers away from their government jobs, this can increase infant mortality; that aid coming into a poor country can increase deadly attacks by armed insurgents; and much more. GiveWell might try to plead that these negative effects are hard to calculate. Yet when it calculates benefits, it is willing to put numbers on all sorts of hard-to-know things.

...

... EA greatly expanded its recruitment of college students. GiveWell’s Karnofsky moved to an EA philanthropy that gives out hundreds of millions of dollars a year and staffed up institutes with portentous names like Global Priorities and The Future of Humanity. Effective altruism started to synergize with adjacent subcultures, like the transhumanists (wannabe cyborgs) and the rationalists (think “Mensa with orgies”). EAs filled the board of one of the Big Tech companies (the one they later almost crashed). Suddenly, EA was everywhere. It was a thing. This was also a paradoxical time for EA’s leadership. While their following was growing ever larger, their thinking was looking even soggier. ...

... At some point, the money took over. The philosophers invited the tech billionaires to dance. Then the billionaires started calling the tunes. I suspect that the tech billionaires didn’t want to be heroes merely by saving individual lives. That’s just what firemen do; that’s just what Spider-Man does. The billionaires wanted to be heroes who saved the whole human race. That’s what Iron Man does. SBF was never really interested in bed nets. His all-in commitment was to a philosophy of creating maximum value for the universe, until it ends. So that became the philosophers’ goal too. They started to emphasize a philosophy, longtermism, that holds the moral worth of unborn generations equal to the worth of living ones. And actually, unborn generations could be worth a lot more than we are today, given population growth. What’s the point in deworming a few hundred kids in Tanzania when you could pour that money into astronautical research instead and help millions of unborn souls to escape Earth and live joyfully among the stars?

...

Longtermism lays bare that the EAs’ method is really a way to maximize on looking clever while minimizing on expertise and accountability. Even if the thing you gave a 57 percent chance of happening never happens, you can still claim you were right. These expected value pronouncements thus fit the most philosophically rigorous definition of bullshit. Moreover, if applying expected value thinking to aid is dodgy, applying it to the remote future gets downright supervillainous. When you truly believe that your job is to save hundreds of billions of future lives, you’re rationally required to sacrifice countless current lives to do it. Remember SBF’s wager: A longtermist must risk the extinction of humanity on a coin flip, double or nothing, over and over again. MacAskill sometimes tries to escape this murderous logic with bulletpointed musings about why violating rights is almost never the best way of creating a better world. ...

Gassho, J

stlah

[Zenkon]

How thoroughly "modern" that we seek a website or perhaps an app to tell us what we should care about. With emphasis on "care about". Perhaps, as an alternative, open your door, step outside and look around. What do you see and what do YOU care about? It's irrelevant if I care about something different. It's irrelevant if my opinion on something is different than yours. Find what YOU care about and get involved. Why? Because if you care, it will make a difference. Is gun violence a problem in your community? - asl the police how you can help. Is poor education an issue? - ask the local school what they need? Is homelessness a concern? - ask social services how you can help. The list is endless. My point - perhaps we should not delegate our compassion to an algorithm. Support something, not because a formula says you "should", but because you care.

Gassho

ZenKon
sat/lah

[Jundo]

How thoroughly "modern" that we seek a website or perhaps an app to tell us what we should care about. With emphasis on "care about". Perhaps, as an alternative, open your door, step outside and look around. What do you see and what do YOU care about? It's irrelevant if I care about something different. It's irrelevant if my opinion on something is different than yours. Find what YOU care about and get involved. Why? Because if you care, it will make a difference. Is gun violence a problem in your community? - asl the police how you can help. Is poor education an issue? - ask the local school what they need? Is homelessness a concern? - ask social services how you can help. The list is endless. My point - perhaps we should not delegate our compassion to an algorithm. Support something, not because a formula says you "should", but because you care.

Gassho

ZenKon
sat/lah

Small actions, big actions, near actions, far reaching actions, actions in our family, our town, our society and the world all have effect. Thank you for the reminder, ZK.

Gassho, J
stlah