The predictably grievous harms of Effective Altruism

Over the past decade the philanthropic ideology of Effective Altruism has grown massively both in attracting funds and in influencing young people to try to make as much money as they can and give most of it away. But a series of catastrophic financial hustles in the world of cryptocurrency has brought EA heightened attention and started to expose its dangers.

OUPblog

ok so couple stub sneers I thought of when reading this:

  • One way to look at EA is as an extension of the middle-manager’s syndrome of injecting metrics everywhere to allow them to spin up narratives of growth and improvement to justify their existence. I can’t decide who I hate more!
  • following on from 1, it’s kind of funny that the EAs, who you could pattern match to a “high school nerd” stereotype, are intellectually beaten out by an analog of the “jock” stereotype of sports fans: fantasy league participants who understand the concept of “intangibles” that EAs apparently cannot grasp.
  • it absolutely tracks that EAs, who see charities that spend money on administrating themselves as inefficient and incompetent, are dumbfounded and bereft of answers when any of their organisations implode
  • E: linking 1 and 3: together: EAs are self hating middle managers.

  • following on from 1, it’s kind of funny that the EAs, who you could pattern match to a “high school nerd” stereotype, are intellectually beaten out by an analog of the “jock” stereotype of sports fans: fantasy league participants who understand the concept of “intangibles” that EAs apparently cannot grasp.
  • On a wider note, it feels the “geek/nerd” moniker’s lost a whole lot of cultural cachet since its peak in the mid-'10s. It is a topic Sarah Z has touched on, but I could probably make a full goodpost about it.

    The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture

    YouTube
    Oh for sure. It’s probably why I feel so unmoored in today’s culture