Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Peter Singer and Effective Altruism
I used to read the site Overcoming Bias a lot, and I still like to go over from time to time. Today he has an interesting post on the complaints against Peter Singer and his idea of Effective Altruism. I had objections to some of the complainers, but these were handled nicely in the comments. So if you can endure comments about comments, I think you will find this interesting.
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7 comments:
'It's good that you didn't enjoy it, but you shouldn't be allowed to control it, either.'
I suppose a "savior complex" is easily discouraged by chaining people to wheels chosen for them by others. I can see how this advances the cause of democracy, as a majority might well vote to yoke the successful to one wheel or another. How it advances the cause of equality is beyond me.
Lemme see if I can do it better: There are more things in heaven and earth... Traditional charities do have problems, sometimes disastrously, but in practice I'm not convinced that the models of how to optimize help are going to reflect reality all that much better.
I've a kind of engineer's attitude towards charity, and EA tends to line up pretty well with my tendencies. But our team was told that if somebody wanted to talk we should drop what we were doing and talk--that showing that other people cared enough to join them was the top priority. (Nobody came in to talk while I was laying tile :-) )
I think the thrust of Robin's assessment was correct. The compainers quoted seem to have more of a problem with direct action charitable organizations than EA specifically. But that could just be because I get the hives whenever people go on about how of viding actual assistance takes away from the *real* work of reforming society to my liking.
I think the thrust of Robin's assessment was correct. The compainers quoted seem to have more of a problem with direct action charitable organizations than EA specifically. But that could just be because I get the hives whenever people go on about how of viding actual assistance takes away from the *real* work of reforming society to my liking.
I had a similar impression, which was part of why I steered all of you to it. Some of the commenters were quite explicit that there was something wrong with direct action charity when that energy might be devoted to the more elevated task of changing society. In practice, that often means no more than voting for the right people and shunning the wrong people. The gas about involving those helped and not condescending to them is ironic in view of the condescending and bullying tone they themselves adopt. Do people just not listen to themselves?
Invest in magic ponies.
It reminds me of some thoughts on education. Approaches and curricula that specify that children will be taught specific things do much better in practice than approaches that have things like "cultural sensitivity" and "appropriate affect" as learning goals. Oh, but it's so much more fun and uplifting to tell yourself that you're "molding little souls" and "preparing 21st century Americans to live in a world of diversity" than that you're teaching long division or the Civil War!
In the same way, "I'm an activist and change agent" is more emotionally satisfying than "I donate ten percent of my income and a couple afternoons a month so that people in my city can get a few extra meals". The fact that it also takes less effort and has less impact on one's lifestyle is just a bonus.
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