this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Betterment and Praxis
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There’s something wrong in my heart with charity and EA. I used to be a big EA and charity fan, but these days I see it as lacking a human element. I’m confident I could be completely miserable working at my high paying job, donating almost all of it to charity, and save a million lives on the other side of the world (at least on paper, whether it’s true is another thing), and probably commit suicide somewhere down the road completely unfulfilled. Or I could work in my local community and probably do “less” but find community, see my impact, be at peace, be effective politically, and protect people in my life. EA is just too robotic.
Note we need charity, but actually I wonder if mutual aide groups aren’t better. They build teams that can actually permanently affect each others lives.
Hey OP, I haven't made my way through the whole thread yet so this may have been brought up already. But look into mutual aid, it's essentially grassroots charity. That might be more of what you're looking for and it's good praxis imo
But how do you find mutual aid groups in your area? I find it difficult, esoecially in my area.
obviously don't self-dox if you're not comfortable, but: the most immediate group you might find for this purpose is probably going to be a Food Not Bombs chapter. if you're american and don't mind it being openly politically-oriented work you might also find such functions attached to a Democratic Socialists of America chapter—quite a few of them do mutual aid.
I think its a question of what your goals are. If its helping people then EA is the most efficient way. If its finding satisfaction in a more hands on way of helping together with a group then that would mean sacrificing (likely in a significant way) some of your potential, but you shouldnt feel bad about that, even this way you would help a lot more than the average person (or what is in my opinion a responsibility for everyone, namely being nice and helpful for your immediate circle of friends, family, etc.). If you choose the former, there are still other ways of finding that human element elsewhere than charity.
I don't have the answers here, but it's quite an assumption to say that EA is most efficient and following another method would be "sacrificing" potential. EA has some major glaring flaws.
I might be ignorant on this, but i would assume that EA is most efficient/effective by definition ( Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis" ). Of course how some may implement it is an other question. What flaws are you thinking of?
There's a portion of the EA movement that uses their beliefs to justify whatever it takes to make as much money as possible so they can donate more. SBF was in this camp, for example.
It's modern-day secular indulgences for a lot of people -- it doesn't matter how much harm you've really done, so long as you are effectively helping people.
There is also a lot of issue with how they figure out what's most effective.
I guess it could be used that way, but moral licensing can occur with any form of good deed. For the average person EA wont mean that they will use slave labor in their oil rigs to make money for feeding children in Africa, just that their limited resources can still make a significant difference. I agree however that its sometimes hard to figure out whats most effective ( although we can make educated estimations ).
Yeah, I realize that these are extremes of it, but when the faces of the movement are overwhelmingly awful people, it's a problem.
It's based/relies on utilitarianism for its moral framework, and I'm just decidedly not a utilitarian. I consider relationships, rights, and motives to matter when judging something.
The whole "earn to give" thing is just a disastrous concept, most publicly in giving cover to things like FTX.
It lacks any theory of power or overall social or economic change. Singer on this issue:
I think utilitarianism is too diverse to just put EA in that box and therefore say its bad. I agree that it could be used as a cover, but for most people it just means finding the best way to help with their limited resources. I agree that it probably wont make systematic changes, but that requires a level of capital that is unavailable for the average person anyway, who can probably make a more significant change in this regard using their voice and vote, while directing their modest resources to where it can already make significant improvement.
I agree. I built my life around earn to give. It just leaves the giver morally empty and supporting a capitalist system, and the receiver dependent on charity. A hundred thousand people receiving malaria vaccines (or whatever) is immensely powerful, but they still live in a country that didn’t apparently want to give malaria vaccines to its citizens? What will happen to them now? It does nothing to solve the problem.