I know it’s nice to say the average person can make an impact and in a very limited, local sense…sure. But not enough to have a “real”, structural impact.
I have quite a few things in fact!! It’s a blog post response, apologies for not giving you a dissertation.
I will note that reframing the “sacrifice” from dollars spent to risks assumed would be a good starting point for a discussion.
I know it’s nice to say the average person can make an impact and in a very limited, local sense…sure. But not enough to have a “real”, structural impact.
I have quite a few things in fact!! It’s a blog post response, apologies for not giving you a dissertation.
I will note that reframing the “sacrifice” from dollars spent to risks assumed would be a good starting point for a discussion.
MacAskill has a nice line about how "it's the size of the drop that matters, not the size of the bucket." Saving several lives each year is, in my view, plenty "real" and a big deal. Even if it's true that certain structural changes could be an even bigger deal.
Can you say more about what risks you have in mind?
If I wanted to give an excuse to hedge fund managers to do as little as possible, I’d say the same thing. It’s strange that he says that knowing what he was knows about finance, though much of his formulation is cynical in that vein: “whelp, it’s pretty much hopeless so let’s do what we can”. I’m happy to talk more about him, and note I greatly appreciate his contribution and I don’t think the larger solutions I have in mind would be conceivable without reflecting on his work.
I want to clarify that I’m talking about risk distribution, not any one specific risk. Those with power do not manage as much risk as they are able to. Instead, they shuffle that risk onto people less capable of managing it. For example: the fund that manages the 401k doesn’t assume the risk for the 401k losing value, instead their fees remain the same.
If we fairly redistributed RISK where those capable of managing it are the ones who assume it, then we wouldn’t need effective altruism to help us send “band aid funds” to organizations cleaning up the mess.
One more (Platonic) metaphor:
We’re on a boat. The captain is driving it and crashes, but written on my ticket is that I assume the risk of any crash and any disagreements are settled out of court. That’s our system. And in that system we need EA. However for EA to really work, we need all those whales to contribute, but they never will. For risk distribution to work, we only need a few whales to step up. We’re more likely to sell a few whales to step up rather than get all whales to commit to EA. So we should do that.
That's odd. If I wanted to give an excuse to hedge fund managers to do as little as possible, I’d say they don't have to do a thing. EA is all about encouraging people to do more (and more effectively) than they otherwise tend to do. The suggestion that it's all about complacency for the rich is simply bizarre.
Now, this isn't the place to argue about the most effective means. If you have a specific proposal that you think is better than what most EAs are doing, that's awesome -- go share it on the EA forums, and I expect you'll find plenty of receptivity if the idea is good. Recent posts consider suggestions ranging from buying coal mines (to shut them down) to thinking about space governance.
There’s EA intention and then what actually happens.
Come talk to some rich people with me (you’ll be shocked at how they abuse EA, it’s like a get out jail free card).
Convincing another philosopher won’t help. Asking someone to chip in a few grand won’t do much. We need the whales, and we need our best explicators working them.
People with less than $5mil pooling cash and delivering it to charitable organizations is a waste of time.
Those same people should organize a coordinated pressure campaign to convince (maybe even threaten!) whales to absorb more risk.
EA is a cynical attempt to something rather than nothing, which is a good intention, but ultimately counter productive as the concept gives whales an excuse to do as little as possible (giving away money) and not address the core issue: risk distribution.
That’s my view. I’m happy to discuss or elaborate. I’m happy to reduce it to clear premises and explore counterexamples or address responses from EAs. I’m also happy to drop it or take it elsewhere as Richard has suggested. Though if any part of it is appropriate here, I think would be taking seriously the cyclical bent. That’s a metrics issue: just how much good does 10,000 people each tossing in $1,000 (or even $10,000) really do compared to other activities such as convincing whales to take on more risk?
That's just false! The average person can save hundreds of lives. I'm not sure why that's a waste of time. How would they organize a coordinated pressure campaign? What risk are you talking about? I have no ability to coerce rich people to donate a lot. I can, however, donate to effective charities.
This just seems like an attempt to displace guilt for not doing anything by blaming the failure to solve problems on the "whales," not being adequate.
I’m saying that you saving 100 or even 1 life is way less than you could do if you worked to convince rich people to save 1million lives.
And that patting yourself on the back for saving 100 is cynical.
You do have that capability: most rich people simply need to be reasoned with (others may need to be coerced). It isn’t that much more effort to convince a rich person, perhaps even less effort. We would have to run the study.
And I’m not talking about a risk. I’m talking about Risk, generally…I could spend more time exploring that with you…I do take the distinction for granted sometimes and I shouldn’t.
I know it’s nice to say the average person can make an impact and in a very limited, local sense…sure. But not enough to have a “real”, structural impact.
I have quite a few things in fact!! It’s a blog post response, apologies for not giving you a dissertation.
I will note that reframing the “sacrifice” from dollars spent to risks assumed would be a good starting point for a discussion.
MacAskill has a nice line about how "it's the size of the drop that matters, not the size of the bucket." Saving several lives each year is, in my view, plenty "real" and a big deal. Even if it's true that certain structural changes could be an even bigger deal.
Can you say more about what risks you have in mind?
If I wanted to give an excuse to hedge fund managers to do as little as possible, I’d say the same thing. It’s strange that he says that knowing what he was knows about finance, though much of his formulation is cynical in that vein: “whelp, it’s pretty much hopeless so let’s do what we can”. I’m happy to talk more about him, and note I greatly appreciate his contribution and I don’t think the larger solutions I have in mind would be conceivable without reflecting on his work.
I want to clarify that I’m talking about risk distribution, not any one specific risk. Those with power do not manage as much risk as they are able to. Instead, they shuffle that risk onto people less capable of managing it. For example: the fund that manages the 401k doesn’t assume the risk for the 401k losing value, instead their fees remain the same.
If we fairly redistributed RISK where those capable of managing it are the ones who assume it, then we wouldn’t need effective altruism to help us send “band aid funds” to organizations cleaning up the mess.
One more (Platonic) metaphor:
We’re on a boat. The captain is driving it and crashes, but written on my ticket is that I assume the risk of any crash and any disagreements are settled out of court. That’s our system. And in that system we need EA. However for EA to really work, we need all those whales to contribute, but they never will. For risk distribution to work, we only need a few whales to step up. We’re more likely to sell a few whales to step up rather than get all whales to commit to EA. So we should do that.
That's odd. If I wanted to give an excuse to hedge fund managers to do as little as possible, I’d say they don't have to do a thing. EA is all about encouraging people to do more (and more effectively) than they otherwise tend to do. The suggestion that it's all about complacency for the rich is simply bizarre.
Now, this isn't the place to argue about the most effective means. If you have a specific proposal that you think is better than what most EAs are doing, that's awesome -- go share it on the EA forums, and I expect you'll find plenty of receptivity if the idea is good. Recent posts consider suggestions ranging from buying coal mines (to shut them down) to thinking about space governance.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/
There’s EA intention and then what actually happens.
Come talk to some rich people with me (you’ll be shocked at how they abuse EA, it’s like a get out jail free card).
Convincing another philosopher won’t help. Asking someone to chip in a few grand won’t do much. We need the whales, and we need our best explicators working them.
Again, if you have a proposal for how the EA community could do better, the place to put it is the EA Forum.
Have you ever tried to convince to convince an EA what they are doing is a waste of time and there are way better things to do?
There are cults and then there’s EA…
But fair enough.
What specific things are they doing that are unwise and what should they be doing instead?
People with less than $5mil pooling cash and delivering it to charitable organizations is a waste of time.
Those same people should organize a coordinated pressure campaign to convince (maybe even threaten!) whales to absorb more risk.
EA is a cynical attempt to something rather than nothing, which is a good intention, but ultimately counter productive as the concept gives whales an excuse to do as little as possible (giving away money) and not address the core issue: risk distribution.
That’s my view. I’m happy to discuss or elaborate. I’m happy to reduce it to clear premises and explore counterexamples or address responses from EAs. I’m also happy to drop it or take it elsewhere as Richard has suggested. Though if any part of it is appropriate here, I think would be taking seriously the cyclical bent. That’s a metrics issue: just how much good does 10,000 people each tossing in $1,000 (or even $10,000) really do compared to other activities such as convincing whales to take on more risk?
That's just false! The average person can save hundreds of lives. I'm not sure why that's a waste of time. How would they organize a coordinated pressure campaign? What risk are you talking about? I have no ability to coerce rich people to donate a lot. I can, however, donate to effective charities.
This just seems like an attempt to displace guilt for not doing anything by blaming the failure to solve problems on the "whales," not being adequate.
I’m saying that you saving 100 or even 1 life is way less than you could do if you worked to convince rich people to save 1million lives.
And that patting yourself on the back for saving 100 is cynical.
You do have that capability: most rich people simply need to be reasoned with (others may need to be coerced). It isn’t that much more effort to convince a rich person, perhaps even less effort. We would have to run the study.
And I’m not talking about a risk. I’m talking about Risk, generally…I could spend more time exploring that with you…I do take the distinction for granted sometimes and I shouldn’t.