Are EA billionaire philanthropists actually effective in their 'altruism'? (spoilers: no)
Are EA billionaire philanthropists actually effective in their 'altruism'? (spoilers: no)
Charity, power, and who gets to define “good”
They're no better than their Russian/American/Chinese billionaire equivalents; they just find themselves restricted by higher standards in Europe.
Make no mistake, if it weren't for the laws currently in place, European billionaires would be making the exact same moves those in America currently are.
The saying "there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire" springs to mind. Who did they, or their families fuck over, in order to garner that sort of wealth?
Anyone who was truly altruistic, and had that sort of money, would not retain their status of billionaire for very long.
The saying “there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire” springs to mind. Who did they, or their families fuck over, in order to garner that sort of wealth?
There’s a running joke/working theory I’ve heard that in order to become billionaire, you have to have killed someone. (The reality is almost definitely worse)
The billionaire initiation ritual is that scene from Kingsman where
spoiler for a 11yo movie I guess
they ask him to kill his dog but instead of a dog it's a literal child that was performing forced labour for the last year and just wants to go home to its parents, and the bullets are very much live
Effective Altruism is just code for technofeudalism.
Free Market Altruism
Utilitarianism for people who think the humanities are pointless
The Peter Singer EA concept is incredible solid and well argued, such a shame it's been stolen by grifters
Singer's original EA argument, concerning the Bengal famine, has two massive holes in the argument, one of which survives to his simplified setup. I'm going to explain because it's funny; I'm not sure if you've been banned yet.
First, in the simplified setup, Singer says: there is a child drowning in the river! You must jump into the river, ruining your clothes, or else the child will drown. Further, there's no time for debate; if you waste time talking, then you forfeit the child. My response is to grab Singer by the belt buckle and collar and throw him into the river, and then strip down and save the child, ignoring whatever happens to Singer. My reasoning is that I don't like epistemic muggers and I will make choices that punish them in order to dissuade them from approaching me, but I'll still save the child afterwards. In terms of real life, it was a good call to prosecute SBF regardless of any good he may have done.
Second, in the Bangladesh setup, Singer says: everybody must donate to one specific charity because the charity can always turn more donations into more delivered food. Accepting the second part, there's a self-reference issue in the second part: if one is an employee of the charity, do they also have to donate? If we do the case analysis and discard the paradoxical cases, we are left with the repugnant conclusion: everybody ought to not just donate their money to the charity, but also all of their labor, at the cheapest prices possible while not starving themselves. Maybe I'm too much of a communist, but I'd rather just put rich peoples' heads on pikes instead and issue a food guarantee.
It's worth remembering that the actual famine was mostly a combination of failures of local government and also the USA withholding food due to Bangladesh trading with Cuba; maybe Singer's hand-wringing over the donation strategies of wealthy white moderates is misplaced.