The name Effective >Altruism suggests that followers are somehow being altruistic. Both the common usage and dictionary definitions of altruism are clear. Wikipedia lists the word altruism as synonymous with selflessness. So to answer your first question, doing altruistic things for personally beneficial reasons is simply not altruism. It is the opposite.

It may be tempting to dismiss my argument as semantics. It is so much more. This gets to the core of what (I believe ) Less Wrong is all about. Human beings want to be good. Our culture tells us that selflessness is the highest form of good. So we act in ways that provide the charade of selflessness that fools not only those around us, it fool ourselves.

Who cares, right? What's important is people are doing good, right? Well, actually, no, that's not the most important thing. The first word in the EA is the most important thing. Effective. The problem is that the charade makes the process ineffective to the point of harmful. The charade encourages people to do things that are downright despicable while simultaneously providing a feeling of selflessness. The despicable results are five chess moves ahead and consequently for most they are hidden.

Sometimes it is easier to see this charade in others than in ourselves so I encourage you to look to the American missionaries who have worked "tirelessly" for decades in Africa. Churches send first-aid certified volunteers to serve rural outposts. These volunteers are looking for an opportunity to emulate the life of Christ. That is their motivation. The locals come to these outposts for medical care rather than going to the locally trained physician. The locally trained physician can't makes ends meet so they accept the offer from the west to emigrate, leaving the community at the mercy of the amateur outsiders who eventually leave.

There was a statistic circulating in the international-aid community a few years ago that there were more Malawian trained physicians in the city of Manchester in the UK than in all of Malawi. While this turned out to be an overstatement, it is not far from the truth.

This motivation on the part of the missionaries to be selfless (an impossible task) is THE cause of the problem. While some believe it is possible to align dissimilar motivations to create good ends, there are plenty of Africans who say that contrasting motivations have tied the continent into thorny knots. (see Dambisa Moyo)

The desire to be (seen as) an altruist infects the process and creates massive unintended consequences. The only way to be a true altruist is to be anonymous.