I have to admit I am biased as "I have a dog in this fight". Much of what is highlighted in the discussion is why I founded Kinder Ground, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of farmed animals.
The background - I was sorting out my giving and estate planning. I had a self-imposed salary cap. Everything above X went to some sort of charity and I was planning that my estate went to the University to support work to advance animal welfare. Long story short, they made it too complicated, and made it hard, arguing that my name should be attached to it, even though I insisted NO. We went back and forth, and I was over it.
If not them, who? I searched. I had 2 options it seemed. "Ag Based" charities, that frankly are happy to support the status quo. Or, "Anti Ag" groups that worked to improve animal welfare with the primary or clear message that animal agriculture is all bad and needs to be stopped. I was not happy with either message/method and didn't feel either would drive sustained improvements and broad adoption of better practices.
I decided I was going put my money where my experience was, Kinder Ground was born.
The Challenge - As with most charities the challenge is funding. I get needing to prove that you are using funds in a responsible and effective manner. The challenge becomes a chicken and egg dilemma, you need money to prove that it works and need to prove that it works to raise money.
What this EA approach does is apply the worst of corporate habits, a myopic focus on efficiency. Our work will likely never fall into favor with the OP EA crowd. We are boots on the ground, bottom up, changing the culture at the farm level, normalizing making welfare a priority, and making it a "want to do", rather than a have to do. Farmers learn best from other farmers. Prove it on 1 and others will follow, either because they like it or see the value in it.
The Irony - The very reason the majority of our animal production systems fail to give animals a life worth living is corporate and shareholders tunnel vision on efficiency. Our systems are broke because they justify everything with efficiency.
EA, OP seem to think the same approach in philanthropy is going to fix it, conflating Effectiveness with Efficiency? I think their approach overlooks programs that can make an equal or greater impact if given the support needed. They may not be as efficient, but they are effective.
Notre Dame is expected to draw in something like 10 millions visitors this year. I don't know about effective altruism, but it seems like effective investment for the French government (which is, by the way, the owner of the Cathedral).
Almost 10,000,000 people being able to see anything, not just a cathedral, sounds like a better investment. This, as diplomatic influence, is cheaper and more effective than military influence - 1 billion doesn't go far in the war machine.
Let me Francesplain this to you: The saving of Notre Dame is the most outrageous case of conspicious /In/effective /non/-altruism in the past decade at least.
First, one big political issue in France right now is the public budget deficit and the underfunding of public services (including and especially heathcare), which has grown worse due to public borrowing during the Covid 19 crisis. This has heated up the debate on whether rich people should pay more taxes, and especially since Macron abolished the infameous tax on wealth in 2018. The French bilionaire's class leans overwhelmingly conservative right-wing, and so giving money to rebuilt Notre Dame amidst all of this is a political symbol that is not lost on anyone, especially that the French right wing loves to criticise public expenditure for going mostly to poor French of immigrant (read: non-christian non-European) background. This shows how comical it is to even imagine that this money could have been spent on, say, Against Malaria Foundation (I mean, you know /who/ mostly dies of Malaria right?). So saving Notre Dame is not even about being nice, it is a conspicious 'F--- you' addressed to everybody else.
Second, and to make things worse, nobody in France cares about Notre Dame. The Catholics do not care: there are none left in France. The only remaining bona fide French Chistians have switched to born again Evangelism decades ago, and the only people who still claim to be Catholic are far-right LARPers (ever wondered why the latin Catholic mass is so popular in France, which is coincidentally the most performative?). And as for tourism, well I for one believe that Notre Dame would be a much more interesting sight if it were a ruin.
Hi Dr. Singer, I am a big fan and your writings have influenced me a lot. I am a fan of Matthews's writing as well. I don't know if I could make a robust logical case against it, but this dichotomy of optimized vs. un-optimized giving really bothers me. I feel like all un-optimized giving is dwarfed by regular luxury and hedonic spending, and I feel like making donations to the arts the enemy does not compel people to give more. Put another way, I wonder if a focus on *maximizing* charitable giving would have greater worldwide benefits than optimizing charitable giving. Should Geffen have given his money to an EA charity rather than to the New York Philharmonic? Yes, but that is also true of half of the purchases everyone in America makes all the time, so my intuitions tell me that singling out the arts donation is wrong.
Also, I agree with the r/EffectiveAltruism subreddit user u/Tapsen, who pointed out re: this article that "the bit about lighting 15mil on fire obviously wrong, if they netted $85 million that they couldn't have got without the name change."
The issue is that we have a system that rewards orchestra charity with status rather than caring for human life. If you want to buy status, you should buy lives, not names on pre-existing buildings... we should be shaming such stupidity.
There are actually two layers to the concept of effective altruism. The first layer is the subject matter of the debate that we are witnessing here. It is an important debate and a difficult one, as it basically raises the question whether or not we should rank charitable causes.
When we compare the Notre Dame restoration to saving 50K lives, the choice is easy enough. I do admit that, being an atheist, I may be biased with regard to this matter, but I wonder if religious people worship their god less in a less expensive venue?
It becomes more difficult though, if we move towards more "comparable" causes. What if the choice is between saving 50K lives here and now or spending that money on the fight against deforestation in Sub-Sahara Africa, potentially saving many more in the long run and maintaining viable habitats for wildlife? Or what about spending that money on education, family planning and contraceptives, ramping up welfare and slowing down population growth? We are far away now from the easier debate in which we compare luxuries to survival.
The next layer is where we compare the actual effectiveness of our spending. If I have €1,000 to spend, and I can choose between giving it to Greenpeace or a local wildlife rescue centre, or investing it in a lab meat start-up, which of those choices will reduce animal suffering the most?Turns out that the best choice might not be the most popular one ...
Thanks for sharing this. The figures stand by themselves. And behind quantitative data, there are sentient beings, whose lives can be improved or sometimes even saved. EA challenges intuition-based (quick) thinking. And that's how we, as a society, can take better decisions.
I think the amount of thought and selflessness that would be required to turn around the basic desire of people for whom status means they exist is pretty hopeless. It does seem that we as a species have such a broad acceptance of bowing to those in power that decisions such as renovating a 'holy' place goes pretty much without question. The lives of most ordinary people are disconnected from such decisions although recall the furore when the British taxpayers were meant to pay for the restoration of Windsor Castle. Always terrific to have intelligent and ethical thinkers to put this into sharp focus.
It is arbitrary to pick on the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Almost any money that is spent on anything except the most efficient charity will be an immoral waste according to this interpretation of utilitarianism. But most charity would soon become unnecessary if the world had fully free markets and free trade among countries. And that requires no onerous self-sacrifice, but simply that states stop their aggressions against people and their property.
>By contrast, total US charitable donations in 2022 were $499 billion. That means that even if all EA funding were in the US, it would amount to a whopping 0.18 percent of all giving.
Yowza.
Emma is a classic case of "Don't make me feel guilty!"
I have a thought experiment for Amy Schiller, one that assumes she has children (or perhaps substitute a close friend or family member who has children). A fire has started in a church in a small town where Amy lives. A second fire has started in the house where her children are trapped inside. The small fire company is only able to respond to one building fire at a time. Amy has to decide if she wants to send the fire company to the house where her children are trapped, and will die if prompt action is not taken, or to the church, a holy place that will be destroyed if she chooses to save her children. Which is it, Amy? Save your children from burning to death, or save a priceless "holy place" ?
I have to admit I am biased as "I have a dog in this fight". Much of what is highlighted in the discussion is why I founded Kinder Ground, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of farmed animals.
The background - I was sorting out my giving and estate planning. I had a self-imposed salary cap. Everything above X went to some sort of charity and I was planning that my estate went to the University to support work to advance animal welfare. Long story short, they made it too complicated, and made it hard, arguing that my name should be attached to it, even though I insisted NO. We went back and forth, and I was over it.
If not them, who? I searched. I had 2 options it seemed. "Ag Based" charities, that frankly are happy to support the status quo. Or, "Anti Ag" groups that worked to improve animal welfare with the primary or clear message that animal agriculture is all bad and needs to be stopped. I was not happy with either message/method and didn't feel either would drive sustained improvements and broad adoption of better practices.
I decided I was going put my money where my experience was, Kinder Ground was born.
The Challenge - As with most charities the challenge is funding. I get needing to prove that you are using funds in a responsible and effective manner. The challenge becomes a chicken and egg dilemma, you need money to prove that it works and need to prove that it works to raise money.
What this EA approach does is apply the worst of corporate habits, a myopic focus on efficiency. Our work will likely never fall into favor with the OP EA crowd. We are boots on the ground, bottom up, changing the culture at the farm level, normalizing making welfare a priority, and making it a "want to do", rather than a have to do. Farmers learn best from other farmers. Prove it on 1 and others will follow, either because they like it or see the value in it.
The Irony - The very reason the majority of our animal production systems fail to give animals a life worth living is corporate and shareholders tunnel vision on efficiency. Our systems are broke because they justify everything with efficiency.
EA, OP seem to think the same approach in philanthropy is going to fix it, conflating Effectiveness with Efficiency? I think their approach overlooks programs that can make an equal or greater impact if given the support needed. They may not be as efficient, but they are effective.
All the best
Notre Dame is expected to draw in something like 10 millions visitors this year. I don't know about effective altruism, but it seems like effective investment for the French government (which is, by the way, the owner of the Cathedral).
Almost 10,000,000 people being able to see anything, not just a cathedral, sounds like a better investment. This, as diplomatic influence, is cheaper and more effective than military influence - 1 billion doesn't go far in the war machine.
Let me Francesplain this to you: The saving of Notre Dame is the most outrageous case of conspicious /In/effective /non/-altruism in the past decade at least.
First, one big political issue in France right now is the public budget deficit and the underfunding of public services (including and especially heathcare), which has grown worse due to public borrowing during the Covid 19 crisis. This has heated up the debate on whether rich people should pay more taxes, and especially since Macron abolished the infameous tax on wealth in 2018. The French bilionaire's class leans overwhelmingly conservative right-wing, and so giving money to rebuilt Notre Dame amidst all of this is a political symbol that is not lost on anyone, especially that the French right wing loves to criticise public expenditure for going mostly to poor French of immigrant (read: non-christian non-European) background. This shows how comical it is to even imagine that this money could have been spent on, say, Against Malaria Foundation (I mean, you know /who/ mostly dies of Malaria right?). So saving Notre Dame is not even about being nice, it is a conspicious 'F--- you' addressed to everybody else.
Second, and to make things worse, nobody in France cares about Notre Dame. The Catholics do not care: there are none left in France. The only remaining bona fide French Chistians have switched to born again Evangelism decades ago, and the only people who still claim to be Catholic are far-right LARPers (ever wondered why the latin Catholic mass is so popular in France, which is coincidentally the most performative?). And as for tourism, well I for one believe that Notre Dame would be a much more interesting sight if it were a ruin.
Hi Dr. Singer, I am a big fan and your writings have influenced me a lot. I am a fan of Matthews's writing as well. I don't know if I could make a robust logical case against it, but this dichotomy of optimized vs. un-optimized giving really bothers me. I feel like all un-optimized giving is dwarfed by regular luxury and hedonic spending, and I feel like making donations to the arts the enemy does not compel people to give more. Put another way, I wonder if a focus on *maximizing* charitable giving would have greater worldwide benefits than optimizing charitable giving. Should Geffen have given his money to an EA charity rather than to the New York Philharmonic? Yes, but that is also true of half of the purchases everyone in America makes all the time, so my intuitions tell me that singling out the arts donation is wrong.
Also, I agree with the r/EffectiveAltruism subreddit user u/Tapsen, who pointed out re: this article that "the bit about lighting 15mil on fire obviously wrong, if they netted $85 million that they couldn't have got without the name change."
The issue is that we have a system that rewards orchestra charity with status rather than caring for human life. If you want to buy status, you should buy lives, not names on pre-existing buildings... we should be shaming such stupidity.
There are actually two layers to the concept of effective altruism. The first layer is the subject matter of the debate that we are witnessing here. It is an important debate and a difficult one, as it basically raises the question whether or not we should rank charitable causes.
When we compare the Notre Dame restoration to saving 50K lives, the choice is easy enough. I do admit that, being an atheist, I may be biased with regard to this matter, but I wonder if religious people worship their god less in a less expensive venue?
It becomes more difficult though, if we move towards more "comparable" causes. What if the choice is between saving 50K lives here and now or spending that money on the fight against deforestation in Sub-Sahara Africa, potentially saving many more in the long run and maintaining viable habitats for wildlife? Or what about spending that money on education, family planning and contraceptives, ramping up welfare and slowing down population growth? We are far away now from the easier debate in which we compare luxuries to survival.
The next layer is where we compare the actual effectiveness of our spending. If I have €1,000 to spend, and I can choose between giving it to Greenpeace or a local wildlife rescue centre, or investing it in a lab meat start-up, which of those choices will reduce animal suffering the most?Turns out that the best choice might not be the most popular one ...
Thanks for sharing this. The figures stand by themselves. And behind quantitative data, there are sentient beings, whose lives can be improved or sometimes even saved. EA challenges intuition-based (quick) thinking. And that's how we, as a society, can take better decisions.
I think the amount of thought and selflessness that would be required to turn around the basic desire of people for whom status means they exist is pretty hopeless. It does seem that we as a species have such a broad acceptance of bowing to those in power that decisions such as renovating a 'holy' place goes pretty much without question. The lives of most ordinary people are disconnected from such decisions although recall the furore when the British taxpayers were meant to pay for the restoration of Windsor Castle. Always terrific to have intelligent and ethical thinkers to put this into sharp focus.
It is arbitrary to pick on the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Almost any money that is spent on anything except the most efficient charity will be an immoral waste according to this interpretation of utilitarianism. But most charity would soon become unnecessary if the world had fully free markets and free trade among countries. And that requires no onerous self-sacrifice, but simply that states stop their aggressions against people and their property.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/peter-singers-famine-affluence-and
Don't cross Dylan!
>By contrast, total US charitable donations in 2022 were $499 billion. That means that even if all EA funding were in the US, it would amount to a whopping 0.18 percent of all giving.
Yowza.
Emma is a classic case of "Don't make me feel guilty!"
I have a thought experiment for Amy Schiller, one that assumes she has children (or perhaps substitute a close friend or family member who has children). A fire has started in a church in a small town where Amy lives. A second fire has started in the house where her children are trapped inside. The small fire company is only able to respond to one building fire at a time. Amy has to decide if she wants to send the fire company to the house where her children are trapped, and will die if prompt action is not taken, or to the church, a holy place that will be destroyed if she chooses to save her children. Which is it, Amy? Save your children from burning to death, or save a priceless "holy place" ?