It’s another bubble that a handful of people invented for themselves to insulate them from the reality of the effect on the world. It’s one of the most genuinely pathetic “movements” I’ve ever seen.
I've always been wary of effective altruism. Anything that geek and people want to "optimize out" by engineering has a risk of just being a "let's ride very fast towards that wall" kind of venture
Interesting, I wasn't aware that EA had made it into the American culture wars. There will be a ton of grist for the conspiracy mills with all the sex cults, murders, and high power democratic donations. Can't see it going well for the EA crowd, or democrats.
> The movement’s long-standing fears of an AI catastrophe make it a villain in the eyes of the Trump administration. “Americanism, not effective altruism,” is the Department of War’s attack line. The president’s allies are going after Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, as a representative of effective altruism.
I'd wager that it's simply the government wanting absolute power (as it should) and going after misaligned oligarchs.
So, effectively, power struggles in circles beyond our reach.
Arguably a good thing that the government would eventually try to claw back power there, given that in theory, it's democratically elected and all.
You might benefit from thinking critically about who and what you consider to be greedy. If you don't, it's easy to be tricked by various kinds of shell games, where certain kinds of work are never considered "greedy" or certain kinds of charity make the donor appear disproportionately generous. One game that's become pretty well known is how many "donations" to well-funded schools are in fact admissions payments for wealthy kids.
Will MacAskill responds to our cover story on effective altruism
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/10/04/will-maca...
I do not think you can call it a social movement because it does not have any significant mass of people behind it and by its nature, never will.
Social movements come in all sizes. Its a bunch of people who all agree on something. That is a social movement.
It is a social movement of note and importance because of the power wielded by its adherents.
> It is a social movement of note and importance because of the power wielded by its adherents.
We should tax the shit out of them, if only to reduce the unelected power their wealth buys.
Just like we should tax the shit out of the non-EA ultra wealthy.
We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.
It’s another bubble that a handful of people invented for themselves to insulate them from the reality of the effect on the world. It’s one of the most genuinely pathetic “movements” I’ve ever seen.
I've always been wary of effective altruism. Anything that geek and people want to "optimize out" by engineering has a risk of just being a "let's ride very fast towards that wall" kind of venture
Interesting, I wasn't aware that EA had made it into the American culture wars. There will be a ton of grist for the conspiracy mills with all the sex cults, murders, and high power democratic donations. Can't see it going well for the EA crowd, or democrats.
> The movement’s long-standing fears of an AI catastrophe make it a villain in the eyes of the Trump administration. “Americanism, not effective altruism,” is the Department of War’s attack line. The president’s allies are going after Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, as a representative of effective altruism.
I'd wager that it's simply the government wanting absolute power (as it should) and going after misaligned oligarchs.
So, effectively, power struggles in circles beyond our reach.
Arguably a good thing that the government would eventually try to claw back power there, given that in theory, it's democratically elected and all.
Just a magical mental gymnastics for someone who got the message that greed is bad, but wanted to continue being greedy.
The title alone is comical. "Here are ten reasons to continue to be greedy...".
You might benefit from thinking critically about who and what you consider to be greedy. If you don't, it's easy to be tricked by various kinds of shell games, where certain kinds of work are never considered "greedy" or certain kinds of charity make the donor appear disproportionately generous. One game that's become pretty well known is how many "donations" to well-funded schools are in fact admissions payments for wealthy kids.
probably the best description of EA that I've read so far.
Calling it "most important movement" is like calling national socialism "most important movement", just because it made history doesn't make it good
You are conflating "important" with "good", which I don't think the author was intending.