Comment by cyanydeez

3 hours ago

Just a magical mental gymnastics for someone who got the message that greed is bad, but wanted to continue being greedy.

15 comments

cyanydeez

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SpicyLemonZest  3 hours ago

You might benefit from thinking critically about who and what you consider to be greedy. If you don't, it's easy to be tricked by various kinds of shell games, where certain kinds of work are never considered "greedy" or certain kinds of charity make the donor appear disproportionately generous. One game that's become pretty well known is how many "donations" to well-funded schools are in fact admissions payments for wealthy kids.

bawolff  3 hours ago

Meh, they have some beliefs i disagree with, but ultimately they are spending money on things like feeding the hungry.

I feel like there is this weird thing where people will criticize people who do charity work in not quite the right way (from the criticizers perspective), but are totally fine with people who just use their money to buy a yacht.

I'd much rather have people spend their money on feeding the hungry, even imperfectly then spending it on other pursuits.

I sometimes wonder what the critics of EA are doing to eradicate the ills of the world or even their local community. Is it more than what EA is doing? If not, i'd say those in glass houses should be wary of throwing stones.

  • kylestanfield  2 hours ago

    This is a motte and bailey fallacy. I don’t think many people take issue with feeding the hungry. However the longtermist sect and their idea that enriching yourself as much as people so you can do more good later leads to the actual controversial actions especially when taken to its logical extremes. And the AI fanaticism got mixed in there somehow.

    • bawolff  4 minutes ago

      Are there examples of these "controversial actions". Are they actions that wouldn't have happened without the ideology of EA. How prominent is it within the movement.

      I'm opened to having my mind changed, but i'm going to need more than that.

    • jefftk  1 hour ago

      > their idea that enriching yourself as much as people so you can do more good later

      This is a very uncommon idea within EA. There are some people who support it ("patient philanthropy") but almost everyone within EA either thinks you should be working / donating to help people/animals (most "neartermists") or you should be working / donating to help reduce extinction risk (most "longtermists").

  • AnimalMuppet  2 hours ago

    > Meh, they have some beliefs i disagree with, but ultimately they are spending money on things like feeding the hungry.

    Are they? To what degree are they? And to what degree are they not helping the hungry today, in order to amass more money so that they can in theory help the hungry more tomorrow?

    I can respect someone like Bill Gates. He hasn't been perfect, not by a long shot, but he's put real money into really trying to help real problems. What's the track record of the effective altruists? (Genuine question - I haven't researched them enough to know.)

    • jefftk  42 minutes ago

      Feeding the hungry in particular is uncommon, but global poverty (usually malaria nets and other specific impactful + neglected interventions) is the largest cause area in EA, and something I've personally donated a lot to.