Originally Posted by PokerPlayingDunces
REG's narrow minded maths analysis based approach to charity is potentially dangerous and a potential slippery slope towards a form of, or actual, eugenics. Uh?
It doesn't surprise me at all that a number of poker players (because many poker players have significant blind spots) have bought into REG's nonsense approach, which they claim is based on ethics and logic.
It is not ethical at all, nor humane, to side step past the dying and savable body of one human being and not spending the $100 it would cost to save them, because there are 100 people elsewhere, often in another country or on another continent that you can protect against a potential disease at a cost of $1 each. That's an ethical judgement. A principle often adopted by effective altruists is that all lives have equal value. If I had only $100 and you gave me the choice of saving one person or 100, I would choose the latter regardless of whether they were next to me or 1,000 miles away.
There are many reasons (here are just some) why it is not ethical or humane, nor logical; I will name just a few for the blind spot afflicted poker players out there that think that REG is the nuts. There are arguments against effective altruism, especially in its extreme forms, but those you give are not good ones imo.
(Reasons listed in no particular order)
a) You should be striving to do both where possible, save lives that cost $100 per life and $1 per life and not make God like judgement calls based on maths or "value for money", because you are not God, you are in my opinion extremely narrow minded level 1 thinkers who apply thinking regarding human life as if you are playing a game of chess or poker, games that have no actual relevance to living, breathing human beings. Of course you should try to help everyone if possible. But we live in a world where philanthropic resources are limited and so the philanthropist is forced to make choices. If resources were unlimited then EA would produce the same answer as every other approach: save everyone.
b) In many instances the artificial preservation of life might cause more damaging knock on effects than no intervention, e.g. higher than would have been population growth, therefore compounding the volume of the problem that you were trying to solve in the first place. So the solution in those instances is not always to throw money at it so that you can notionally add 100 lives saved to your lives saved counter, you may have caused the loss of far more lives as a knock on effect. The solution is often is to address the route causes of a problem. Now who's playing God? In any case, the argument (if you believe it) applies to the one life in the same way as the 100. If you believe that saving a life ultimately causes more harm than good then you shouldn't strive to save any. Perhaps you should invest instead in contraception.
c) When push comes to shove, those people in power will break their own rules to save themselves or someone close to them for the $100 cost, while preaching to the masses that letting $100 cost people die naturally is for the greater good. Isn't that exactly what you're advocating - saving the person close to you for $100 rather than 100 people far away for $1 each? You also suggest (see (b) above) that letting the 100 die might be for the greater good.
d) REG and others who subscribe to "effective altruism" appear to have not conducted any studies into the potential and often real, ripple effect, of saving a life for more than a dollar, nor given any thought to this concept. E.g. A person saved for $100 might go on to do great things for wider society and/or if they are not saved then their loved ones may have their spirit for life permanently damaged, which hinders or prevents them from going on and doing great things for wider society. Some do consider ripple effects to the extent that's practical but its very hard for effective altruists or you to predict. In any case its not a reason to save one rather than 100.
A very short way to summarise a lot of the above is that REG and the "effective altruism" movement/philosophy know the cost of a dose of anti malaria medicine, but they do not know the value of a smile. I don't see at all how this follows. Why can't a philanthropist appreciate both lives and smiles?
I am not religious, but the phrase that springs to mind is, God help us, if REG and/or people like them ever gain significant government influence and/or control, especially if it has a global or global consensus reach, because if they do, we will all become their chess pieces on a chess board, their cards in their poker hand, and our right to exist and to survive as human beings will be determined by them based on what is the most +EV maths based move by them, and not what is humane or ethical. EA followers believe that reducing suffering as much as possible with the available resources is actually the ethical and humane thing to do. I'm not clear what alternative you're advocating. Governments already make such choices based on impact. For example, should the next $m be spent on road safety or healthcare or flood defences. I would want my government to choose on the basis of a reasoned view on which reduces most suffering and death and adds the most happiness.
Whether Elon Musk is aware of their dangerous philosophy I don't know. Maybe he is and he agrees with it, again I don't know. I'm not clear why you call it "dangerous". The philosophy is simply about how to do the most good with limited capital.
