Codex: Effective Altruism is Evil
Today's codex is focused on painting a picture of how and why Effective Altruism is working overtime to ensure future generations are miserable.
Dear Aspiring Polymaths,
I hope your weekend was wonderful! I, for one, was glued to twitter watching the most absurd and important corporate coup of our lifetime play out in real time. More on that later.
New episode of the Learn Arena podcast just dropped! Continuing our controversial topics series, today we discuss gender dynamics—the real differences between men and women, how these differences create differential behaviors and mating strategies, and why American men are falling way behind women economically. Links:
Now, on to today’s Codex, which is really just an evidence-supported rant against my philosophical nemesis, Effective Altruism.
November 20th, 2023 Learn Arena Codex
Over the weekend, the board of directors of the most important company on earth, OpenAI, suddenly ousted their superstar CEO for no reason other than insane effective altruist AI risk fears. While it’s going to work out in favor of progress and result in the craziest foot gun I’ve ever seen, the truth of what happened here is yet more proof that effective altruism is a deeply, deeply evil ideology. Here’s some commentary from a former EA leader lamenting how it became so evil.
And to refresh your memory of why EA is bad, this link is a great layperson summary. In a sentence: effective altruism leads to heinous, evil conclusions if taken seriously.
Ideological extremists were only able to pull this off with OpenAI because OpenAI is a for-profit LLC controlled by a non-profit board of directors. Non-profits are deeply corrupt and worse in every way than for-profit companies, and they have no incentive to improve. This is a well known fact in the academic literature, actually! https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2096&context=faculty_publications
These same effective altruists are the exact same community of people responsible for the FTX $40 billion fraud. In fact, Sam Bankman Fried himself has been very clear that he did what he did because effective altruism says he should “earn to give”—make as much money as possible through any means, legal or illegal, so you can give it to effective altruists causes after. https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2023/10/24/book-review-going-infinite/
Nothing can stand in the way of an effective altruist and their goals—certainly not common sense morality like “don’t lie” or “don’t commit fraud”. In fact, Effective Altruist godfather Peter Singer has written peer-reviewed academic papers explaining in detail why, in fact, effective altruists can and should lie, cheat, and steal if they are doing so to advance “long term happiness and well being.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9329.2009.00449.x
The core of the problem with effective altruism is summed up in a beautiful C.S. Lewis quote: “My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position [imposing “the good”] would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under of robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some points be satiated; but those who torment us for their own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to heaven yet at the same time likely to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on the level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/but-its-for-your-own-good-c-s-lewis-on-tyranny/
To leave you with the philosophical opposite of effective altruism—the philosophy that most closely matches my own—behold, the techno-optimist manifesto. https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
Also, to understand the problems with altruism writ large at a deeper philosophical level, check out this episode of the Learn Arena podcast: