Effective Altruism and End-Times Fascism

I just read an article from The Guardian, written in April 2025 (I'm a bit behind on my reading ...). It's a good read, but that's noy why I share it here. What I want to highlight is something I'm seeing more and more, which is very negative portrayals and stereotyping of EA. 

Some EA's seem ok with this, or accept that it goes with the territory. I vehemently disagree. I would argue that bringing EA thinking to the centre of the Overton window would be the single most impactful achievement of the 21st century, and that it is something we need to take very seriously, and dedicate resources to.

 The rise of end times fascism | Far right (US) | The Guardian

This particular article is about the evil and danger of the fascist right-wing that is sweeping across the US and much of Europe. About a world in which empathy is seen as a great weakness, a world in which those opposing a climate armageddon are equated with Satan, a world of self-styled "Christian nationalism," where foreigners are enemies whom we torture to inspire the loyalty of the masses, ... well, you know, the world many of out elected leaders seem to inhabit. 

Then, while reading and sadly nodding my head in agreement with so much of the article, I came upon this text:

 "There is also effective altruism and longtermism, both of which skip over redistributive approaches to helping those in need in the here and now in favor of a cost-benefit approach to doing the most good in the long term. Though they can appear benign at first glance, these ideas are shot through with dangerous racial, ableist and gender biases about which parts of humanity are worth enhancing and saving – and which could be sacrificed for the supposed good of the whole. They also share a marked lack of interest in urgently addressing the underlying drivers of collapse – a responsible and rational goal that a growing cohort of figures now actively shun."

Those EA's who live in EA-bubbles probably do not realise just how badly EA is perceived in mainstream media. But this is The Guardian, a very liberal UK newspaper, and the article was written by two very well known liberal activists, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. On almost any political or social question, The Guardian might be the world newspaper most aligned with EA's positions. But even there, this criminally false stereotyping of EA passes. If we were Donald Trump, we would sue for $10 billion for reputational damage, but we'd actually win.

And this is far from a one-off. Just this week, The Economist, another quite liberal outlet, published an article (paywalled) in which EA thinking was described as just "weird" and ideas like direct giving were ironically described as "exotic." And, of course, as usual, the first actual EA person named, the typical EA whose goal is to live a life of luxury but assuage their conscience through public displays of charity, was SBF. That is literally how many people see EA's.

Why does this matter?

Effective Altruism is a rare philosophy with the explicit goal of helping people and animals without any strings attached. You don't have to believe in bizarre metaphysical theories (but it's ok if you do). Everybody is welcome. You just need to want to help people and animals as much as you can. 

I don't need to convince this audience that EA is great...

The world would be so much better if everyone were exposed to this thinking in a positive way. But too many people either never hear of it at all, or hear about it as some weird nerdish cult. If you were to ask Americans which public figures might be EA's, they would probably name some of the most evil but clever humans who have ever lived, like Peter Thiel or Elon Musk. That's how EA is perceived, and that's why it's so hard to spread our message.

We need people to start thinking of typical EA's as more like Peter Singer or Rutger Bregman, who openly focus on helping and caring. Ir we could move the image of a typical EA closer to someone like Mr. Rogers or even Keanu Reeves, that would help balance things a bit and show the caring side that is often overlooked. 

Maybe we could even get some very popular people who are widely respected as decent people (George Clooney, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Barack Obama, even Bono ...) to start speaking about EA in a positive way. 

It's easy to ignore this - we work away in our dark corner, not looking for respect or admiration, just doing what is right and helping people. We get to feel like martyrs, which is nice. But unfortunately, if we remain a tiny minority, we will always have limited impact, while those who know how to do PR (often the populists) will continue to move the world in the wrong direction.

IMHO, people across the rich world are struggling to find a philosophy that contradicts the horrific ideas they hear from Trump, Farage, Meloni, Vox, AfD, Orban, ... and they are struggling because so many politicians and parties (all the EPP aligned parties across the EU, the Democrats in the US) that should be providing that alternative have also moved far to the right and accepted many of the neofascist ideas so deeply that they are now considered moderate. 

EA has the potential to offer a clear view which matches with the true worldview of many people, including not just liberals but decent conservatives and true Christians. We don't have to be a political party, we just need to get the ideas out there, being discussed and given a fair hearing, rather than being dismissed as they are today. 

If we can get people asking themselves seriously if they would like to live in a world governed by EA thinking, I believe many would, because at heart people are good - we just need to give them the chance to show their true nature.