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owencb comments on Another Critique of Effective Altruism - Less Wrong
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It is interesting, what people inside EA find troubling, compared to people outside. (I do not identify myself as EA).
For me, the most repellent things are mentioned here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/j8n/a_critique_of_effective_altruism/#poor-psychological-understanding
In other words, self sacrifice is expected from me to the extent, that my life would suck. No, thanks.
Specifically, the issues about children: 1. I want to have them. 2. Apart from my psychological need - do the damned EA know what they are doing ? Is it really that helpful, that western middle class should have even lower population growth, than there is know ? Some people predict, that Europe, as my (our ??) children will know it, will be Islamic. I hope I will not offend the muslim rationalists, I know there are some on this site. Anyway, the culture currently associated with Islam does not seem to me like truth-seeking-friendly. It certainly will fix itself later, like Christianity fixed itself from the bigotry stage in cca 600 years. But do we really want to withdraw from the population battle entirely ? (OK, the word battle probably does not attract You altruist folks, but I do not know the other way to say it). I can imagine the counterarguments, that spreading memes inside familes is not that efficient, that children often rebel. And that memes can be spread outside the family. Well, good luck turning the significant portion of Muslim imigrants into rationalists ! USA is different from EU, but I guess withdrawing middle class from children bearing pool there is also no victory.
I mean, I do not force anybody to have children if they do not want to. It is a lot of work and resources. But to guilt anybody into not having them ? There are way too many people in that cathegory, who are lazy to have them. Why adding another incentive by making it virtuous ?
I think some individual EAs may very reasonably decide that it's not worth it for them personally to have children. But part of the strength of the movement, that attracts people, is the message that people can achieve a lot without great personal sacrifice. I wonder where that message got lost.
Hm, are You asking why I did not notice that message, or why did it, objectively, get lost ? I will answer the first part, why I never noticed such a message.
Short after learning, that EA exist, my CFAR friend, who is dating an EA, told me about a disagreement she had with her boyfriend. He did not not want her to go her best friends wedding, because travel expenses and time spent could be used better. (Although he later admitted it was a half joke from his side). She also told me, he periodically scolds her, her temperament is too prone to hapiness, which makes her less understand suffering, which makes less incentive for her to work on preventing it. That was not a joke.
I had some shocks at the EA facebook group. OK, Ben Kuhn complains that EA fb group is stupid these days. I was told that supporting less than optimal charity is immoral. I translate it into examples, that supporting any Slovakian charity is immoral, because money are better spent on AMF. Supporting this baby is probably even more immoral than my favourite Slovakian charity. If the example involved my baby, it was immoral to have the baby in the first place. I switly left the facebook group, but after my departure, I saw an afterdiscussion, that what a pity we made Barbara leave, these truths should not be revealed to newcomers.
I spend 2 or 3 nights reading EA online stuff to determine, whether these interactions were outliers and came to conclusion they were not. Ben Kuhn does not convince me otherwise in his article. The article also confirms, that the pressure to have no children is felt by some. You may decide to have them, but the sentiment is :Aye, I am a sinner !
The peer pressure You get from these folks is overwhelmingly guilt inducing. I perceive the movement as self destructive and not sustainable.
There is an identifiable homogenous movement? I'll gladly adopt the good ideas and apply them as it suits me, forget about the movement if it consists of self-handicapping pathologically literal people. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Peer pressure is a strong thing. I do not want to have a peer pressure of self-handicapping pathologically literal people on me, but they are EA mainstreem as far as I can tell. Therefore I want to keep distance from EA as "folks to hang out with". I, for instance, hope that LW meetup groups in Bratislava and Vienna will remain sensible places for me to go.
Yes, there is an identifiable homogeneous movement. Those people are the reason I don't actually tell most of my IRL friends that I have a LessWrong account. These kinds of people are the ones defining the reputation of LessWrong, rationalism, effective altruism, MIRI, CFAR, and every associated whatever.
For me, EA is one reason among many for not having children. I doubt it would convince me alone, but I might say it did if I wanted to appear virtuous.