<story><title>Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say</title><url>https://time.com/6252617/effective-altruism-sexual-harassment/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gruez</author><text>&amp;gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that that bothers me so much as the fact that many effective altruists do it so badly. [...] But effective altruists are as likely to talk about colonizing Mars as they are to talk about global warming.&lt;p&gt;Are they doing it badly, or are you not understanding their arguments? AFAIK effective altruists want to colonize mars on x-risk grounds, which would explain why they want to prioritize that over global warming, even though the latter is happening right now. AFAIK they think that global warming is bad, but isn&amp;#x27;t an existential risk, whereas colonizing mars will mitigate many existential risks.</text></item><item><author>dfgheaoinbt6t</author><text>&amp;gt;Especially once people start down the path of thinking the needs of today aren&amp;#x27;t as important as the needs of a hypothetical future population.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that that bothers me so much as the fact that many effective altruists do it &lt;i&gt;so badly&lt;/i&gt;. We need to be concerned with the future. That is the only reason to maintain roads and bridges, to prevent pollution, or to conserve resources like water in aquifers and helium. But effective altruists are as likely to talk about colonizing Mars as they are to talk about global warming.&lt;p&gt;Effective altruism is supposedly about making evidence-based decisions. We have no idea how likely &amp;quot;existential risks&amp;quot; are. We have no idea what, if anything, can be done about them. We cannot predict a year into the future, let alone millenia. So-called longtermism is nothing more than guesswork.</text></item><item><author>JohnFen</author><text>Effective Altruism is just a modern iteration of a thing that&amp;#x27;s been around for a very long time. The fundamental idea is sound. However, in practice, it all-too-easily devolves into something really terrible. Especially once people start down the path of thinking the needs of today aren&amp;#x27;t as important as the needs of a hypothetical future population.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I started &amp;quot;tithing&amp;quot; when my first business was a success. In part because it&amp;#x27;s good to help the less fortunate, but also as an ethical stance. Having a business drove home that no business can be successful without the support of the community it starts in, so it&amp;#x27;s only right to share in the rewards.&lt;p&gt;So, I give 10% back. I have rules about it:&lt;p&gt;I always give to a local group who directly helps people and who is typically overlooked for charitable giving. I get to know the group pretty well first.&lt;p&gt;I never give to any group that won&amp;#x27;t keep my identity a secret.&lt;p&gt;I never give to any group that asks me for money.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t always give in the form of money. Sometimes, it&amp;#x27;s in the form of my time and effort, or in material goods, etc.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t give to &amp;quot;umbrella&amp;quot; groups whose purpose is fundraising for a collection of other groups. This isn&amp;#x27;t because I have a problem with them, but because they&amp;#x27;re not the ones who struggle the most to get donations.</text></item><item><author>jfengel</author><text>The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments.&lt;p&gt;EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they&amp;#x27;re always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible things.&lt;p&gt;Once that happens, it can easily spiral out from there. People who know perfectly well they&amp;#x27;re misbehaving will claim that they aren&amp;#x27;t, using the same arguments. It won&amp;#x27;t hold water, but now we&amp;#x27;re swamped, and the entire thing crumbles.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love to believe in effective altruism. I already know that my money is more effective in the hands of a food bank than giving people food myself. I&amp;#x27;d love to think that could scale. It would be great to have smarter, better-informed people vetting things. But I don&amp;#x27;t have any reason to trust them -- in part because I know too many of the type of people who get involved and aren&amp;#x27;t trustworthy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yamtaddle</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve yet to see an argument for colonizing Mars for this purpose, that wouldn&amp;#x27;t be a better argument if the goal were instead &amp;quot;build robust, distributed bunkers on earth, and pay families to live in them part-time so there&amp;#x27;s always someone there&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Cheaper, and more effective.&lt;p&gt;Most plausible post-apocalyptic Earths would be far easier to live on than Mars.&lt;p&gt;The remaining threats that wouldn&amp;#x27;t also be pretty likely to take out Mars at the same time, would be something like a whole-crust-liquifying impact, which we&amp;#x27;d have a pretty good chance of spotting well in advance, and we could put some of the savings into getting better at that.&lt;p&gt;I think a bunch of smart people are also just romantics when it comes to space shit, and that&amp;#x27;s why they won&amp;#x27;t shut up about Mars, not because it&amp;#x27;s actually a good idea.&lt;p&gt;Hell, building orbital habs is probably a better idea than colonizing Mars, for those purposes, if we &lt;i&gt;must&lt;/i&gt; do space shit.</text></comment>
<story><title>Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say</title><url>https://time.com/6252617/effective-altruism-sexual-harassment/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gruez</author><text>&amp;gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that that bothers me so much as the fact that many effective altruists do it so badly. [...] But effective altruists are as likely to talk about colonizing Mars as they are to talk about global warming.&lt;p&gt;Are they doing it badly, or are you not understanding their arguments? AFAIK effective altruists want to colonize mars on x-risk grounds, which would explain why they want to prioritize that over global warming, even though the latter is happening right now. AFAIK they think that global warming is bad, but isn&amp;#x27;t an existential risk, whereas colonizing mars will mitigate many existential risks.</text></item><item><author>dfgheaoinbt6t</author><text>&amp;gt;Especially once people start down the path of thinking the needs of today aren&amp;#x27;t as important as the needs of a hypothetical future population.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that that bothers me so much as the fact that many effective altruists do it &lt;i&gt;so badly&lt;/i&gt;. We need to be concerned with the future. That is the only reason to maintain roads and bridges, to prevent pollution, or to conserve resources like water in aquifers and helium. But effective altruists are as likely to talk about colonizing Mars as they are to talk about global warming.&lt;p&gt;Effective altruism is supposedly about making evidence-based decisions. We have no idea how likely &amp;quot;existential risks&amp;quot; are. We have no idea what, if anything, can be done about them. We cannot predict a year into the future, let alone millenia. So-called longtermism is nothing more than guesswork.</text></item><item><author>JohnFen</author><text>Effective Altruism is just a modern iteration of a thing that&amp;#x27;s been around for a very long time. The fundamental idea is sound. However, in practice, it all-too-easily devolves into something really terrible. Especially once people start down the path of thinking the needs of today aren&amp;#x27;t as important as the needs of a hypothetical future population.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I started &amp;quot;tithing&amp;quot; when my first business was a success. In part because it&amp;#x27;s good to help the less fortunate, but also as an ethical stance. Having a business drove home that no business can be successful without the support of the community it starts in, so it&amp;#x27;s only right to share in the rewards.&lt;p&gt;So, I give 10% back. I have rules about it:&lt;p&gt;I always give to a local group who directly helps people and who is typically overlooked for charitable giving. I get to know the group pretty well first.&lt;p&gt;I never give to any group that won&amp;#x27;t keep my identity a secret.&lt;p&gt;I never give to any group that asks me for money.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t always give in the form of money. Sometimes, it&amp;#x27;s in the form of my time and effort, or in material goods, etc.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t give to &amp;quot;umbrella&amp;quot; groups whose purpose is fundraising for a collection of other groups. This isn&amp;#x27;t because I have a problem with them, but because they&amp;#x27;re not the ones who struggle the most to get donations.</text></item><item><author>jfengel</author><text>The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments.&lt;p&gt;EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they&amp;#x27;re always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible things.&lt;p&gt;Once that happens, it can easily spiral out from there. People who know perfectly well they&amp;#x27;re misbehaving will claim that they aren&amp;#x27;t, using the same arguments. It won&amp;#x27;t hold water, but now we&amp;#x27;re swamped, and the entire thing crumbles.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love to believe in effective altruism. I already know that my money is more effective in the hands of a food bank than giving people food myself. I&amp;#x27;d love to think that could scale. It would be great to have smarter, better-informed people vetting things. But I don&amp;#x27;t have any reason to trust them -- in part because I know too many of the type of people who get involved and aren&amp;#x27;t trustworthy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>freejazz</author><text>&amp;gt;Are they doing it badly, or are you not understanding their arguments?&lt;p&gt;Do YOU not understand their arguments? They are facially stupid. The notion that we should be colonizing mars because of global warming is the stupidest thing I&amp;#x27;ve ever read or heard.</text></comment>