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Effective Altruism is just code for technofeudalism.

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.

Thanks for the reply! I don’t know if I’m banned either, but I’m happy to continue the conversation. (I’m sorry if I’ve done something ban-worthy, I’ll be happy to stop whatever I’m doing that’s bad.)

1. Not completely sure I understand how Peter Singer qualified as an epistemic mugger, but if your point is that infinities make utilitarianism really wonky, absolutely. I do think the drowning child thought experiment has value still, especially as it doesn’t contain infinities, that chugging Peter in the river would be bad, and that prosecuting people like SBF who try to defend themselves with bizarrely misunderstood moral philosophy is good.

2. Naturally the donation strategy in Bangladesh should be updated once that charity is no longer the most effective, e.g. if so much has been donated that they’ve solved the problem in Bangladesh. In The life you can save, its explicitly argued that donating to charity is likely not the most effective action if we’re talking about the resources of an entire society, but it’s something you can do right now to great effect. You can both save the drowning child and work towards a more fair society that stops more suffering in the long term. You can seize the means of production without new shoes.

What the idiotic longtermists get wrong is that somehow you should only focus on the long term and ignore the child that’s drowning right now.

3. Stopping the Bangladesh famine from even happening clearly has much greater utility than donating money to save a single life. But while I have very little individual power to stop the famine, I do have the power to save a life directly. Again, I can organize to change the system while also donating what I can to the most effective charity. That’s what Peter Singer argues, and I do indeed find it convincing.

There is a genocide going on right now in Gaza. Has Singer, the great utilitarian, said anything about how the common man should act to stop it?

Is it more effective to protest or block ports or destroy weaponry? Do we have a moral obligation to overthrow governments supporting genocide, in particular if that government is in our country? If we come across one of the perpetrators of the genocide do we have a moral obligation to do something?

Or are these all to uncomfortable questions, while the donation habits of the middle class is comfortable questions?

I have no idea what Peter Singer has to say about Gaza. I haven’t heard anything about what the most effective way to help stop the genocide is, I don’t think there is much evidence on the matter right now. Based on EA I’d say do as much as you can, but don’t neglect the possibly more effective causes like malaria nets and direct giving.

Is your argument that Singer’s philosophical arguments are fallacious because he hasn’t delivered a guide to how to help the Palestinians? Because I don’t think that works out.

If your argument is that he himself is a poor philosopher or activist for that reason, then sure, I have nothing against that.

My argument is that if he hasn’t spoken out on Gaza, if he hasn’t urged people to do what he thinks would be the best way to stop the genocide, then he is either a fool who can’t see what is in front of him or a moral coward who can’t act on his convictions.

Either way it makes him a poor ethics philosopher. We can be pretty sure that unless he himself is an experienced life guard, he would in fact not dive in to the river to save the child.

If he wouldn’t save the drowning child, does that mean I shouldn’t? Does his personal failings really invalidate his ideas and arguments?

No. That’s exactly the ad hominem fallacy.

Does moral cowardice matter in someone teaching about ethics? Yes, just as much as physical cowardice matters for a life guard. (The other way is fine.)

Does he express his ideas and teachings as something that it would be good if people did, but he totally wouldn’t if it causes himself a smidgen of inconvenience? If he didn’t, we now know that he was lying. Which matters if your moral framework cares about truth.

If you have to read his works for some reason, do it with open eyes and try to figure out who and what he is lying in service of.

Nothing about a philosopher’s person matters as long as they’re able to put forward coherent philosophical arguments. If a conclusion follows from a set of assumptions and an argument, what does it matter if a five year old or a tree presented that argument?

Sure, if you distrust the source, that invites deeper scrutiny, but it cannot in itself invalidate an argument.

@SmoothOperator @mountainriver

What's your position on Codes Of Conduct for free software projects? Just trying to confirm some prejudices here

Could you elaborate? I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to, I’m not a software developer.

I’m not continuing the debate, but I’d like to answer your question:

I disagree, the design of technology is political (see Invisible Women) and the use of technology is political (see Marx and I guess the current political era in general).

Only in the absolutely simplest case would I agree, i.e. technology is politically neutral in the sense that a car would still exist if all humans were to vanish tomorrow, and wouldn’t in itself be a political agent, but that’s not really an interesting statement.