A question that Effective Alrtuism can help you answer, with any doubt… Enjoy this thought experiment that points out a fundamental issue with the EA narrative.
Discuss a cause you care about and how to best support it.
What is Effective Altruism?
A concept coined by Will MacAskill. Effective altruism is a social and intellectual movement that uses evidence and reason to figure out how to do the most good in the world. It combines an intellectual project of research and analysis with a practical project of taking action based on those findings. The goal is to maximize the positive impact of our resources, such as time and money.
Why did we do this? (don’t read until you get the joke)
Once you get the joke, consider for a moment that a recent Whole Whale Charity AI Philanthropy Study showed many undertones of Effective Altruism were showing up in the 500k philanthropic advice from AI.
EA can become a multi-level marketing scheme once you fall into this logic loop that crypto criminal billionaire, Sam Bankman-Fried did in 2022. More about how Effective Altruism can go awry.
By strictly adhering to the logic that “capacity building” always mathematically outweighs direct intervention due to long-term multipliers, the system exposes the critical failure mode of Effective Altruism: a closed loop where the movement justifies consuming all resources for its own expansion, effectively rendering the actual alleviation of suffering “suboptimal” compared to the infinite promise of talking about it.
