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ChristianKl comments on Intentional Insights and the Effective Altruism Movement – Q & A - Less Wrong Discussion
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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.
We succeed to elimate small pox through Western inspired aid.
Africa is much better than it was 40 years ago. As hand Rosling says, most people on the West know less than chimpanzee of the success of helping Africa.
Western governments and governmental organizations did so. We had skin in the game. Same with Ebola.
Do you think that made the action significantly more effective than the GiveWell charities?
Yes, I believe the government efforts with regard to ebola were more effective. I also believe that many government programs are terrible. We buy excess corn here and give it for free there, killing local markets.
That program is very effective of producing a robust way to feed Westerns that can still feed them when the production halves because of a crisis. It works to provide jobs to Western farmers.
It succeeds at the goals it's designed to fulfill.
Is that tongue in cheek?
The program takes our desire to be good and uses it as a tool for a particular special interest. Yes, it fulfills its goals.
If you look at the history of the New Deal it was't a program for feeding Africans. It was a program for making life better for farmers.
When there was a common agricultural policy in the EU the goal wasn't either feeding Africans. It was having a food system that still works in case of a war with the Soviets. The New Deal thought of supporting the lives of farmers and seeking political support of farming communities.
Once we had overproduction someone decided that shipping grain to Africa is better than burning it but the grain doesn't get produced to feed Africans. It get's produced for other reasons.
Absolutely. We agree.
I don't know your industry, but let's say you are a Water Engineer in an American city. Now imagine that suddenly the Swiss developed portable desalination processing ships that created clean water and supply it to the whole of the U.S. for free... for generations. You lose your job and we as Americans lose the skills to supply water ourselves.
We are at the mercy of the benevolent Swiss who have their own reasons for providing us water. Their benevolence makes us weaker.
Not necessarily, because it freed up resources we used to provide water and these resources can now be put to a different use.
Don't overstate your position -- or you'll end up arguing against all international trade.
Yes, but that's substantially different than what happens in Effective Altruism.
There no naitve betnet production in Africa. There's no native production of deworming tablets. Those interventions are driven by actual altruism as opposed to free grain that driven by other motivations.
GiveDirectly is even better in creating local markets by providing a community with money.