Man, thanks for writing this. Your thoughts are always so organized and easy to follow, I really appreciate it!
The only thing I really knew about EA until recently was the GiveWell angle. A lot of charities skim too much off the top, a lot of charities target feel-good causes that are over-funded leaving more urgent-yet-boring causes underfunded, give your money wisely. I grew up poor and only recently started receiving a really good salary once I began my current career, so I wanted my newfound ability to donate to charities to go as far as possible, so I would've considered myself an effective altruist until recently. I didn't realize a lot of the worse aspects of EA that you point out in this.
Do you still consider the evaluation of cost-effectiveness of charities a useful tool? Are there organizations that don't rely on RCT that someone like me could use instead? I'm currently decently politically active back home (mostly in the lgbtq+ community, though I'm really interested in getting more into prison abolition once I return stateside), and am specifically working in the field of renewable energy engineering to try to do my own little part to "make the world a better place", so I do appreciate that there are more dimensions to living a moral life than donating money and feeling smug about it. But I still want whatever money I do give to go as far as possible, and appreciate the EA ethos on that front. Or am I still missing the point?
There are good kernels in EA. (1) If you have a lot of money, you should redistribute it; (2) when you redistribute it, don't give it to shitty organizations. So trying to donate more and think critically about what your donation accomplishes are good. I just think that "earning to give" and the economist-y evaluation framework for donation efficacy are problematic.
I think there's orgs that are worth giving to that are never going to seem "cost effective." I donate to Survived & Punished and a few different abortion funds. So it's really up to you how you want to spend your money. I try to also give my labor to local organizing causes (with my union when we were organizing a strike; now to an abolitionist campaign). I certainly don't do enough of this. But I worry about the overlap between "earning to give" and the sort of all consuming careerism that this could encourage. Struggle is something we do together! And sometimes there are good donations that aren't evaluated by RCTs. If you still wanna give to Against Malaria, that's great, too. I've sent them a bunch of money over the past decade. I don't even hate the concept of GiveWell. I just worry about their evaluation logic becoming a politics in its own right.
renewable energy + lgbtq + abolition are all great causes!
If you think participating in US politics is the best way to do the “most that we can do for each other, together”, I have some oceanfront property in Nebraska to sell you. Of course we should vote and canvas for progressive candidates, and billionaires like SBF certainly don’t make their fortunes ethically, but to suggest that EA is somehow wrong to advocate for people to donate to effective causes is ridiculous.
Not just about voting or GOTV, though! You're sort of skipping over the whole "earn to give" aspect of EA. It's not just about "which charity is more cost effective?" It's: "You should structure your entire political life around donating to charity." This is individualist and glorifies the accumulation of money through jobs that are politically damaging. I would prefer for people to organize a union, do jail support, help an abortion fund, or engage in any number of collective political actions instead of just working a job that perpetuates global poverty so that they can donate to Against Malaria.
Earning to give is misrepresented in this piece and this comment. Nearly all the EA texts and effective altruists themselves specifically mention that, while earning more to be able to donate more may be an effective way to do good, one should not cause harm while doing so. There are some jobs that are openly harmful (running a wildly unethical crypto firm), but many are probably net neutral (physician, accountant, etc.). Earning to give helps people find ways to use their talents to choose a net positive/neutral career which allows them to best help the worlds most disenfranchised. This does not preclude engaging in collective political action. Is earning to give a bandaid on an arterial bleed? Yes. But so is running an abortion fund! Will MacAskgill and others made a grave mistake in encouraging SBF to go on the career path he did. This doesn’t say anything about the numerous people in the EA community that ethically use earning to give.
Apologies for the long comment but one hypothetical to consider. Suppose a physician is deciding how they can do the most good. They are contemplating working in the US for $500k/yr and donating 20% or 100k/yr to a town in rural Somalia so that a clinic of 3 local physicians can provide care. His other option is to move to the town and provide the care directly. On your view, what should he do?
See, I just fundamentally disagree about the political value of earning to give. My parents are physicians, actually, and I spent a lot of my life thinking that as a worker I probably wouldn't be able to "do as much good" outside of medicine. But while being a doctor is indeed a morally neutral/good profession, I don't think choice of profession (or donations from a profession) are actually sufficient as political praxis. I think the hypothetical is interesting, but I'm ambivalent on the choices. Either of those options seems fine while also not particularly *political.* You might just not care about the political aspect. But that's the core of how I evaluate "altruistic behavior"
I think something important about an abortion fund vs. charitable donations is the social solidarity component. You're organizing with others and probably doing political education, too. On this point, I certainly don't do as much work as I think I'm obligated to. Part of the reason why is that my job makes me exhausted. This is what I'm saying about physicians - my parents worked 80 hours a week for their entire adult lives. They didn't have energy left to do political organizing (not that they were particularly inclined to do so). To the extent that earn to give pushes people into professions with longer hours, it can limit political horizons...
Yeah, I agree that we differ on the value of earning to give. Thanks for explaining your view. I’m not sure what you include in your definition of “political,” but I am generally skeptical of the ability to enact meaningful change through US politics that isn’t resource ineffective. This also ignores the difference in potential change domestically vs globally. I agree social solidarity is important, though.
I am a fourth year medical student. I was choosing between two specialties I enjoyed equally. I felt I was equally ‘good’ at each. One pays ~40% more than the other, so I decided to choose the higher paying specialty so I could give more to effective global poverty/health causes. I believe this is the usual fashion people use the concept of earning to give. Your arguments against earning to give/participating in harmful capitalism may apply more to people deciding between a bourgeoisie and proletariat career, I will have to think more about that.
Man, thanks for writing this. Your thoughts are always so organized and easy to follow, I really appreciate it!
The only thing I really knew about EA until recently was the GiveWell angle. A lot of charities skim too much off the top, a lot of charities target feel-good causes that are over-funded leaving more urgent-yet-boring causes underfunded, give your money wisely. I grew up poor and only recently started receiving a really good salary once I began my current career, so I wanted my newfound ability to donate to charities to go as far as possible, so I would've considered myself an effective altruist until recently. I didn't realize a lot of the worse aspects of EA that you point out in this.
Do you still consider the evaluation of cost-effectiveness of charities a useful tool? Are there organizations that don't rely on RCT that someone like me could use instead? I'm currently decently politically active back home (mostly in the lgbtq+ community, though I'm really interested in getting more into prison abolition once I return stateside), and am specifically working in the field of renewable energy engineering to try to do my own little part to "make the world a better place", so I do appreciate that there are more dimensions to living a moral life than donating money and feeling smug about it. But I still want whatever money I do give to go as far as possible, and appreciate the EA ethos on that front. Or am I still missing the point?
Thanks again!
tysm for reading, and for the praise!
There are good kernels in EA. (1) If you have a lot of money, you should redistribute it; (2) when you redistribute it, don't give it to shitty organizations. So trying to donate more and think critically about what your donation accomplishes are good. I just think that "earning to give" and the economist-y evaluation framework for donation efficacy are problematic.
I think there's orgs that are worth giving to that are never going to seem "cost effective." I donate to Survived & Punished and a few different abortion funds. So it's really up to you how you want to spend your money. I try to also give my labor to local organizing causes (with my union when we were organizing a strike; now to an abolitionist campaign). I certainly don't do enough of this. But I worry about the overlap between "earning to give" and the sort of all consuming careerism that this could encourage. Struggle is something we do together! And sometimes there are good donations that aren't evaluated by RCTs. If you still wanna give to Against Malaria, that's great, too. I've sent them a bunch of money over the past decade. I don't even hate the concept of GiveWell. I just worry about their evaluation logic becoming a politics in its own right.
renewable energy + lgbtq + abolition are all great causes!
If you think participating in US politics is the best way to do the “most that we can do for each other, together”, I have some oceanfront property in Nebraska to sell you. Of course we should vote and canvas for progressive candidates, and billionaires like SBF certainly don’t make their fortunes ethically, but to suggest that EA is somehow wrong to advocate for people to donate to effective causes is ridiculous.
Not just about voting or GOTV, though! You're sort of skipping over the whole "earn to give" aspect of EA. It's not just about "which charity is more cost effective?" It's: "You should structure your entire political life around donating to charity." This is individualist and glorifies the accumulation of money through jobs that are politically damaging. I would prefer for people to organize a union, do jail support, help an abortion fund, or engage in any number of collective political actions instead of just working a job that perpetuates global poverty so that they can donate to Against Malaria.
Earning to give is misrepresented in this piece and this comment. Nearly all the EA texts and effective altruists themselves specifically mention that, while earning more to be able to donate more may be an effective way to do good, one should not cause harm while doing so. There are some jobs that are openly harmful (running a wildly unethical crypto firm), but many are probably net neutral (physician, accountant, etc.). Earning to give helps people find ways to use their talents to choose a net positive/neutral career which allows them to best help the worlds most disenfranchised. This does not preclude engaging in collective political action. Is earning to give a bandaid on an arterial bleed? Yes. But so is running an abortion fund! Will MacAskgill and others made a grave mistake in encouraging SBF to go on the career path he did. This doesn’t say anything about the numerous people in the EA community that ethically use earning to give.
Apologies for the long comment but one hypothetical to consider. Suppose a physician is deciding how they can do the most good. They are contemplating working in the US for $500k/yr and donating 20% or 100k/yr to a town in rural Somalia so that a clinic of 3 local physicians can provide care. His other option is to move to the town and provide the care directly. On your view, what should he do?
See, I just fundamentally disagree about the political value of earning to give. My parents are physicians, actually, and I spent a lot of my life thinking that as a worker I probably wouldn't be able to "do as much good" outside of medicine. But while being a doctor is indeed a morally neutral/good profession, I don't think choice of profession (or donations from a profession) are actually sufficient as political praxis. I think the hypothetical is interesting, but I'm ambivalent on the choices. Either of those options seems fine while also not particularly *political.* You might just not care about the political aspect. But that's the core of how I evaluate "altruistic behavior"
I think something important about an abortion fund vs. charitable donations is the social solidarity component. You're organizing with others and probably doing political education, too. On this point, I certainly don't do as much work as I think I'm obligated to. Part of the reason why is that my job makes me exhausted. This is what I'm saying about physicians - my parents worked 80 hours a week for their entire adult lives. They didn't have energy left to do political organizing (not that they were particularly inclined to do so). To the extent that earn to give pushes people into professions with longer hours, it can limit political horizons...
Yeah, I agree that we differ on the value of earning to give. Thanks for explaining your view. I’m not sure what you include in your definition of “political,” but I am generally skeptical of the ability to enact meaningful change through US politics that isn’t resource ineffective. This also ignores the difference in potential change domestically vs globally. I agree social solidarity is important, though.
I am a fourth year medical student. I was choosing between two specialties I enjoyed equally. I felt I was equally ‘good’ at each. One pays ~40% more than the other, so I decided to choose the higher paying specialty so I could give more to effective global poverty/health causes. I believe this is the usual fashion people use the concept of earning to give. Your arguments against earning to give/participating in harmful capitalism may apply more to people deciding between a bourgeoisie and proletariat career, I will have to think more about that.