I appreciate the desire to be charitable and only focus on the literal truth or falsity of the criticism (or what it omits) but I fear that in explaining what's going on with this reaction to EA's I think it's necessary to look at the social motivations for why people like to rag on EA.
And, at it's core, I think it's two-fold.
First, people can't help but feel a bit guilty in reaction to EAs. Even if EAs never call anyone out, if you've been donating to the make a wish foundation it's hard not to hear the EA pitch and not start to feel guilty rather than good about your donation. Why didn't you donate to people who needed it much more.
A natural human tendency in response to this is to lash out at the people who made you feel bad. I don't have a good solution to this issue but it's worth keeping in mind.
Secondly, EA challenges a certain way of approaching the world that echoes the tension between STEM folks and humanities individuals (and the analytic continental divide as well).
EA encourages a very quantative, literal truth oriented way of looking at the world. Instead of looking at the social meaning of your donations, what they say about your values and how that comments on society, it asks us to count up the effects. At an aesthetic level this is something that many people find unpleasant and antithetical to how they approach the world. In other words, it's the framework that is what really does most of the offense not the actual outcomes. You could imagine pitching those same things in a different way where it wasn't about biting hard bullets but all stated in terms of increasing the status of things they approved of and I think the reaction would be different.
"I think it’s almost always possible to find a responsible way to express your beliefs. And it’s usually worth doing so: even Good Things can be further improved, after all. (Or you might learn that your beliefs are false, and update accordingly.)"
I think the internet has gotten further and further into the unfortunate situation where honesty and nuance are disincentivized. EA is a reasonable and good moral idea. So, how can you attack it? Be ridiculous, inflammatory, misleading, highlight--and create (I'm thinking Bostrom) scandles. It wouldn't be surprising if the thought process behind some people went like this EA is getting attention --> I can get attention critiquing EA --> I will find reasons to oppose EA--> oh there aren't really very many; let me turn my snark up to 100 and highlight all their weirdness. Then people profit by getting clicks. A major issue of our time.
I also see that if someone strongly commits themselves to socialism such that they make it their identity, then they, even if they are vegan, attack effective altruists for "not taking the systemic issues of capitalism" seriously. If they just made "doing good" or "making the world a better place" their identity and searched for whatever system achieves that goal, then they would not attack effective altruism. And, well, they would not attack real capitalism either because real capitalism does maximize wellbeing more compared to real socialism.
You've voiced something I think about every time I see people criticise EA in the way you describe. I don't think they realise that they are literally arguing against helping others. Do they consider that for everyone they convince, fewer people get life saving medication, and more animals are subjugated to torture? How do people (especially leftists) not realise that's crazy?
Apply the nearest and dearest test to vaccines. Before rolling them out, imagine that all of the victims are your family members and none of the people saved are. That's surely a responsible way to reason about things.
Whether or not the relevant conditions hold, is it really a productive way to have a conversation to start out by comparing your opponents to anti vaxxers? (I’m EA, btw)
I already had some misgivings about your “moral misdirection” article to begin with, and seeing you use it in this context has amplified them. On the other hand, when I see that quote from Scott Alexander, in your footnote, I find it fairly sympathetic. Thinking it over, I realise that I’m reading Scott as participating in an argument on a first-order level: you’ve said your views and now I am going to say mine. By contrast, I’m reading you as participating on a second-order level: you’ve said your views and now I am going to explain why you should agree that you’re not allowed to say them.
It’s not that I disagree entirely with the notion that people should consider the impression their words will give as well as their denotative content. On the contrary: I scorn the “high decoupling is always better than low decoupling” claim precisely because it implies that such impressions are irrelevant. There is, instead, a golden mean here: it’s good to care about connotations as well as denotations, AND it’s good to cultivate the ability to hear a point that someone is trying to make even if they say it in a way that raises (even potentially justified) alarm bells. It’s not that we should decouple bad implications from potentially useful facts in order to only hear the latter, but that we should strive to be able to see both at once.
However, when it comes to second-order argumentation, I worry that you’re trying to get agreement on more slippery topics (such as the accuracy of an overall impression) as a way of dodging disagreements on simpler topics (such as whether GiveWell’s method of evaluating charities is worth anything at all). Someone who disagrees with you on the latter is unlikely to agree with your conclusions on the former.
If “moral misdirection” arguments just rally your supporters around an agreement that we can dismiss people on second-order grounds without addressing first-order disagreements, then I’m against them. But of course it’s possible that I am reading you incorrectly, and that you are instead merely defending first-order arguments that also address connotations and impressions. Certainly, no reasonable person ought to object to the latter. However, precisely because no reasonable person would object to the latter, it would make more sense to simply take it as given and go ahead and make your first-order counter-arguments.
I appreciate the desire to be charitable and only focus on the literal truth or falsity of the criticism (or what it omits) but I fear that in explaining what's going on with this reaction to EA's I think it's necessary to look at the social motivations for why people like to rag on EA.
And, at it's core, I think it's two-fold.
First, people can't help but feel a bit guilty in reaction to EAs. Even if EAs never call anyone out, if you've been donating to the make a wish foundation it's hard not to hear the EA pitch and not start to feel guilty rather than good about your donation. Why didn't you donate to people who needed it much more.
A natural human tendency in response to this is to lash out at the people who made you feel bad. I don't have a good solution to this issue but it's worth keeping in mind.
Secondly, EA challenges a certain way of approaching the world that echoes the tension between STEM folks and humanities individuals (and the analytic continental divide as well).
EA encourages a very quantative, literal truth oriented way of looking at the world. Instead of looking at the social meaning of your donations, what they say about your values and how that comments on society, it asks us to count up the effects. At an aesthetic level this is something that many people find unpleasant and antithetical to how they approach the world. In other words, it's the framework that is what really does most of the offense not the actual outcomes. You could imagine pitching those same things in a different way where it wasn't about biting hard bullets but all stated in terms of increasing the status of things they approved of and I think the reaction would be different.
"I think it’s almost always possible to find a responsible way to express your beliefs. And it’s usually worth doing so: even Good Things can be further improved, after all. (Or you might learn that your beliefs are false, and update accordingly.)"
I think the internet has gotten further and further into the unfortunate situation where honesty and nuance are disincentivized. EA is a reasonable and good moral idea. So, how can you attack it? Be ridiculous, inflammatory, misleading, highlight--and create (I'm thinking Bostrom) scandles. It wouldn't be surprising if the thought process behind some people went like this EA is getting attention --> I can get attention critiquing EA --> I will find reasons to oppose EA--> oh there aren't really very many; let me turn my snark up to 100 and highlight all their weirdness. Then people profit by getting clicks. A major issue of our time.
I also see that if someone strongly commits themselves to socialism such that they make it their identity, then they, even if they are vegan, attack effective altruists for "not taking the systemic issues of capitalism" seriously. If they just made "doing good" or "making the world a better place" their identity and searched for whatever system achieves that goal, then they would not attack effective altruism. And, well, they would not attack real capitalism either because real capitalism does maximize wellbeing more compared to real socialism.
You've voiced something I think about every time I see people criticise EA in the way you describe. I don't think they realise that they are literally arguing against helping others. Do they consider that for everyone they convince, fewer people get life saving medication, and more animals are subjugated to torture? How do people (especially leftists) not realise that's crazy?
Another excellent post, Richard! Great work!
The phrase "things aren't as simple as [true statement]" is almost always misleading.
Apply the nearest and dearest test to vaccines. Before rolling them out, imagine that all of the victims are your family members and none of the people saved are. That's surely a responsible way to reason about things.
Wenar's article was just terrible. Good response!
Whether or not the relevant conditions hold, is it really a productive way to have a conversation to start out by comparing your opponents to anti vaxxers? (I’m EA, btw)
I already had some misgivings about your “moral misdirection” article to begin with, and seeing you use it in this context has amplified them. On the other hand, when I see that quote from Scott Alexander, in your footnote, I find it fairly sympathetic. Thinking it over, I realise that I’m reading Scott as participating in an argument on a first-order level: you’ve said your views and now I am going to say mine. By contrast, I’m reading you as participating on a second-order level: you’ve said your views and now I am going to explain why you should agree that you’re not allowed to say them.
It’s not that I disagree entirely with the notion that people should consider the impression their words will give as well as their denotative content. On the contrary: I scorn the “high decoupling is always better than low decoupling” claim precisely because it implies that such impressions are irrelevant. There is, instead, a golden mean here: it’s good to care about connotations as well as denotations, AND it’s good to cultivate the ability to hear a point that someone is trying to make even if they say it in a way that raises (even potentially justified) alarm bells. It’s not that we should decouple bad implications from potentially useful facts in order to only hear the latter, but that we should strive to be able to see both at once.
However, when it comes to second-order argumentation, I worry that you’re trying to get agreement on more slippery topics (such as the accuracy of an overall impression) as a way of dodging disagreements on simpler topics (such as whether GiveWell’s method of evaluating charities is worth anything at all). Someone who disagrees with you on the latter is unlikely to agree with your conclusions on the former.
If “moral misdirection” arguments just rally your supporters around an agreement that we can dismiss people on second-order grounds without addressing first-order disagreements, then I’m against them. But of course it’s possible that I am reading you incorrectly, and that you are instead merely defending first-order arguments that also address connotations and impressions. Certainly, no reasonable person ought to object to the latter. However, precisely because no reasonable person would object to the latter, it would make more sense to simply take it as given and go ahead and make your first-order counter-arguments.