Love in the Time of Altruism
The Sterility of Effective Altruism and the Link to Generative A.I.
The “Effective Altruism” (known as “EA”) movement, which grew in popularity from the early 2000’s until the cryptocurrency scammer and EA-promoter Sam Bankman-Fried’s blowup late last year, seeks “to use evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible.”
Some have proclaimed this evidence-based altruism movement dead — ”I see EA fall like lightning”, one friend joked to me late last year. But I think the movement is very much alive. If anything, it will gain steam due to the emergence of generative A.I. and the emerging materialist philosophies of our day. It may have to undergone a serious re-branding, sure, but it’s not going anywhere. All the best heresies are relatively anti-fragile — they only grow stronger under attack — and EA will be like that.
Anyone who has sought philanthropy money in the past 10 years — and I am one of them — knows just how ridiculous most of those fundraising processes have become. And we have EA to thank for much of this. It has infiltrated even the mindsets of people who think they have nothing to do with EA. The incessant requests to “measure everything” — even highly qualitative things, like religious conversions — and find the right “metrics” for the “programs” to “have…
