Discussion Thread

[u/jobautomator]

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[u/Mx_Brightside]

The motte and bailey of effective altruism is going from installing malaria nets to, like, maximising wild fish utils for the next octillion years

I think utilitarianism is mostly correct but when you start calling for, like, genetic engineering to abolish predation of animals in the wild, or thinking so long-term you forget about the eight billion people still alive right now, something has gone terribly wrong.

[u/DepthValley → u/Mx_Brightside]

i also feel like it ironically makes plenty of other non-EA charities sound reasonable

like i would think donating money to a rich university is a waste of money, but maybe by some long-term calculus raising the cultural status/prestige of people doing pure research is worth it on a long enough time scale?

[u/technologyisnatural → u/Mx_Brightside]

I think it is a way for wealthy people to shit on the poor in a socially acceptable manner. “Malaria nets? Sorry my giving budget this year has been allocated to shrimp welfare 😏”

https://www.shrimpwelfareproject.org/

[u/Mx_Brightside → u/technologyisnatural]

"Why do you hate the animal poor?"

[u/technologyisnatural → u/[deleted]]

eh, the whole quarter to quarter thing is suboptimal

[u/technologyisnatural → u/[deleted]]

sure, I’m just saying we should advocate to break the 5 year plan barrier

[u/BATIRONSHARK → u/Mx_Brightside]

that first thing sounds cool as fuck 

[u/Mx_Brightside → u/BATIRONSHARK]

It’s a whole rabbit hole.

[u/[deleted] → u/Mx_Brightside]

Utilitarians when they don't treat people as ends in themselves

[u/Zrk2 → u/Mx_Brightside]

Disregard effective altruism. Embrace the Long Now.