"People are equal" is clearly the weak link... given that you're trying to derive stuff like "I should value strangers as much as my children" from it. It's very wrong to say the inverse of "people are equal", given what you're trying to derive from it, is "racism is good."
I would like to point out that we don't really agree on all beings being equal. In the midst of the same article, some priorization in regards to beings actually took place, but was overlooked: human beings are more important than mosquitoes, and hence, investing resources for the killing of mosquitoes actually makes sense. (I actually was morally confused when donating to implement insect-killing bed nets, mainly because of my belief to abstain from killing living beings altogether. I understand that will sound weird, almost stupid and might even trigger some people here)
Right there is, in my view, evidence that we don't value all beings as equal. But I don't believe that to be a problem. I understand all beings equal in regards to simply being, existing, but not in regards to the actual consciousness of being happy, and I believe that's what might be unconsciously framing our decisions. Saving the life of a being that is actually capable of being happy, acting in connection to that happiness and mantaining it seems to be more convenient than saving the life of a being who is not capable. Saving a mosquitoe is less important than saving a human being, precisely because of this: no matter what you do, mosquitoes can ever hardly be happy, while human beings definitely can.
If we apply that principle to the more nuanced and reduced scope of the human realm, it also makes sense, and we might agree on the gross issues. Giving to a charity that actually knows about suffering and how to reduce it (on the side of that, a charity that knows about happiness) is better than giving to one that doesn't. However, when we apply that to individuals things might get fuzzier: if I say that giving food to a monk is better than giving it to a criminal, a lot of people will oppose me. But why? Generally speaking, aren't monks more capable of being happy than criminals? I believe it's not about living, but living happily, and some human beings are actually not that good in that, and not necessarily for external reasons.
Please don't take this as an excuse to not give to some human beings, that is not my intention. Give to the humans you feel most drawn to give (the warm fuzzies). Simply keep in mind that some humans will be better admins in their wellbeing, and that giving to them actually bears great fruit, but that it is definitely not defined by race, identitity or any external factor but by internal skillfulness in their capacity to be happy. Making a triage with this criteria might be at the edge of EA thinking imo.
I’ve been thinking about the long-term flow-through effects of nutrition through an EA lens. Specifically: would a systemic shift away from highly processed foods be one of the most effective ways to protect human capital? If we view diabetes as a 'gateway' to chronic illness, the ripple effects—lost productivity for breadwinners and the 'caregiver burden' on families—are massive. I’m curious if anyone has seen a cost-effectiveness analysis on preventative nutrition vs. late-stage medical intervention.
Even though I understand the picture you're trying to dram by pointing out how prioritising a cause we've personally suffered from can lead to a bias against the most effective strategy to do good, I'd argue that personal lived experience can be a factor to make the more effective choice. Here in the example about leukaemia, there is an implicit pre-supposition that the help in discussion is gonna be in the form of donation, which would make the argument 100% valid. However, if you're engaging in a more direct way in an attempt to reduce certain suffering, your perspective on the different aspects of it is going to be way more detailed and elaborate, and consequently more effective.
After eight years of being involved in EA I'm reading over some of the fundamentals. I appreciated the elegance of the argument. I'm also reminded of something that my colleague said "causes don't matter - people matter"* which is a different way of articulating cause neutrality.
*simplistic as other beings like non-human animals or future generations aren't strictly included in that phrase.
I don't have a concrete critique nor a complete non-critical opinion about all I read. A lot can be differently interpreted by different people with different backgrounds and different experiences. I had few ideas/questions raising to my mind as I was reading and I just would like to say them out loud. The idea of helping more in quantity is a philosophical dilemma, well known in the thought experiment of the train that we can decide which one of two tracks it can go on, where on one track there are 5 people and on the other track is one. (There's a lot related to this thought experiment, that don't fit here). And then there's the idea of deciding on the sort of help one offers and its quality, as well as the quality of the choices one decides for and therefor trades off against other choices. This decision of which is which is also relative and differs from one person to the other. As an example, should resources (money, time, etc.) aimed to help people in refugee camps fleeing conflict zones be directed to feeding them and making their lives in the camps better or on education and empowerment? They need the fish and the fishing equipment and knowledge, but not all can be offered. Another example, is it more important to use limited resources on saving and hosting refugees fleeing dictatorship or supporting the people to overcome their dictators? Should we give it all to pan a right-extrimist party or to convey knowledge to the people to not support such a party and constructively weaken it over time while strengthening democracy and participation of people? I can go on with examples, but I think I made the idea clear. Once more, for me while thinking out loud and sharing my thoughts. Or am I delusional thinking about all this in this way?
I want to stress that I don't mean that the text here is against what I just mentioned. I'm just saying that while reading I had these ideas/questions and I wouldn't say that I have clear answers for them, not from my side nor to extract from the text. Nevertheless, it might be too philosophical(?) to comprehend matters this way!
Was reviewing this for making social media content for my EA University Group and I have a potentially stupid question about the equality principle. If we collectively decide to pick up the most 'objectively' important-tractable-neglected spheres of impact, what guarantee is there that the outcome is ultimately better than if we 'selfishly' decided to contribute to those of our personal interest (such as the leukemia example or things involving close relatives, for instance)?
Something's telling me that at the end of the day, the 'invisible hand' of altruism will eventually allocate 'equally' rather than having a narrative that pushes people towards certain directions (though I know this is probably unquantifiable empirically). I just tend to think that having a certain bias is not only okay, but necessary, as we may have personal responsibility over certain spheres rather than others and hence totally impartiality would lack effectivity in the super-long-run.
“Caring about equality means treating all death and suffering as a tragedy, not just that caused by specific diseases that we — by cruel twists of fate that thrust them into our field of view — happen to notice.” - very good.
Just wanted to give more attention to an edit, as also highlighted by Sharang Phadke: The text for the picture with "Women in Uganda holding bales of insecticide-treated bednets provided by the Against Malaria Foundation, one of Giving What We Can's Top Charities." is not below said image as typical image text, rather, it is placed awkwardly in the middle of main text further down.
We absolutely owe it to those affected when we fail to think altruistically. In a world where there are several worthy causes we can work on to save lives around us, it’s imperative for us to making decision that embrace the concepts of standing in the gap and importance of helping others. As true Altruist and responsible members of the universe, let us strive doing good better and serving most good with our limited resources.
Here’s an example of this in action. The typical person in the UK donates around £6,700 ($9,600USD)[3] over the course of their working lifetimes. For this money we could fund the distribution of around 1,900 mosquito nets[4] (likely preventing around 200children from becoming really, really sick from malaria[5], and probably saving at least two or threelives). However, most voluntary donations go to domestic medical charities.[6] The UK’s National Health Service considers it good value to save one year of healthy life for around £25,000. [7]It’s highly unlikely that a domestic charity will beat this figure, so the typical donor’s impact is going to be many, many times less than it could otherwise be. Remember, just because we don’t think about these choices, doesn’t mean that they’re not there.
Great example here
Was literally talking to a friend about this. Many people I've met when I talked about EA has the first impression that it's about looking at the admin costs and overhead being too high that makes charities ineffective.
When in fact, as I'm trying to explain to them, it's where the money can be directed (aka effective interventions) that's going to make the most difference.
"many causes we choose to support tend to be the result of" should I think be "many choices to support a cause tend to be the result of" as what follows should I think refer to the choice as opposed to the cause or charity.
Thank you for these 4 ideas / values which I fully agree with and I love the idea of not only agreeing with them in theory but actually living them fully. Two things that caught my attention are:
* "people are equal": Which I 100% agree and I would even go to Living Beings are equal. What would our world, our resources, our world's biggest problems be like if we considered ourselves and Nature as equal? I am aware that there are some details in what we consider living beings. And I would expect that even without having a perfect answer to that question, putting humans at the same levels than other beings, would help us make more ethical and moral decisions.
Our resources are limited: I agree that time and money are limited and key considerations in what we prioritise. Equally, I wonder, what type of world and solutions would we prioritise if we also acknowledged that our natural resources are limited? such as water, food in some part of the world, natural energy, minerals, biomass etc. When I look at the amount of natural resources we use, carefree, to address climate change for examples, I think that a more honest look at the total cost of our solutions (natural, financial, human etc) is highly needed. Especially with the development of AI and the rate of technological innovation that is foreseen. It would seem like our moral responsibility to me too.
I would love to hear your views on these two points. Thank you!
The recognition of finite resources, be it financial wealth or time, is a crucial consideration that grounds these ideals in practicality. The acknowledgement that every allocation decision implicitly involves foregoing other options underscores the need for thoughtful decision-making and efficient resource utilization.
I am grateful for learning opportunity and values being added to me by Joining this Orrganization of greatminded people driven by the Quest to live a legacy of impacting humanity.
Here are four ideas that you probably already agree with. Three are about your values, and one is an observation about the world. Individually, they each might seem a bit trite or self-evident. But taken together, they have significant implications for how we think about doing good in the world.
It's important to help others — when people are in need and we can help them, we think that we should. Sometimes we think it might even be morally required: most people think that millionaires should give something back. But it may surprise you to learn that those of us on or above the median wage in a rich country are typically part of the global 5%[1] — maybe we can also afford to give back too.
People[2] are equal — everyone has an equal claim to being happy, healthy, fulfilled and free, whatever their circumstances. All people matter, wherever they live, however rich they are, and whatever their ethnicity, age, gender, ability, religious views, etc.
Helping more is better than helping less — all else being equal, we should save more lives, help people live longer, and make more people happier. Imagine twenty sick people lining a hospital ward, who’ll die if you don’t give them medicine. You have enough medicine for everyone, and no reason to hold onto it for later: would anyone really choose to arbitrarily save only some of the people if it was just as easy to save all of them?
Our resources are limited — even millionaires have a finite amount of money they can spend. This is also true of our time — there are never enough hours in the day. Choosing to spend money or time on one option is an implicit choice not to spend it on other options (whether we think about these options or not).
I think that these four ideas are all pretty uncontroversial. I think it seems pretty intuitive that we should help people in need if we can; that we shouldn’t arbitrarily preference some groups of people over others; that we would prefer to help more people if given the option; and that we don’t have infinite time and money.
In fact I’d go further — I’d say that we’d feel pretty uncomfortable trying to defend the alternative positions if we were talking to someone, namely:
Helping others in need isn’t morally required, important, or even that good
It’s OK to value people differently based on arbitrary differences like race, gender, ability etc.
It doesn’t matter if some people die even if it doesn’t really cost us anything extra to save their lives
We have unlimited resources
See what I mean?
We don't have infinite money, so we always need to choose which worthy cause to support.
So if we agree that these four ideas embody important values — and I think that they do — then there are big implications for how we should think about doing good. In fact, it means that the way we typically think about doing good is wrong.
In order to be true to these values, we need to think about how we can help the most people with our limited resources.
This is important, because there are some causes where we can make a big impact for a small amount of money. In fact the best options are much, much better than the average — sometimes hundreds of times better. That might mean the difference between helping one person, and helping hundreds of people for exactly the same amount of time or money.
Because a charity chosen at random is almost certainly not making as big an impact as the most effective charities (and let’s face it, many causes we choose to support tend to be the result of either random chance, or systemic factors that mean we’re only exposed to certain causes).
And this matters, because if we don’t choose well, then we’re either not giving people equal consideration (that is, implicitly discriminating against some groups of people), or we’re not helping as many people as we can (that is, allowing extra people to suffer or die, even though we could potentially help them).
So, at first, every worthy cause — from cancer research, to climate justice, to animal sanctuaries, to preventing easily treatable but unpronounceable diseases in places that we'll probably never visit — should be on the table... except that we also think it's better to help more people and we understand that we don’t have the resources to help everyone. So we should first focus on the causes where we can help the most people for our limited time and money, not just on those that we happen to have already heard about.
Trying to be cause-neutral can be a really hard thing to do. Most people have first-hand experience of loss: I’ve lost two relatives to leukaemia; watched as the disease consumed their bodies and the pain meds fogged their minds; lived through the shared grief of their passing. It’s entirely reasonable that this makes us want to donate to organisations trying to solve the specific problem or cure the particular disease that has robbed us of our loved ones. We’re empathetic creatures, and we don’t want other people to experience the same suffering, or for their loved ones to experience the same grief.
But if we care about treating people equally, we should also care about treating their experiences equally. There’s not a really good reason that I should prefer averting the death, disability, and suffering caused by a particular disease (like leukaemia) any more than I should care about suffering caused by malaria, tuberculosis, traffic accidents, or anything else. What matters is that lives are cut short, parents are deprived of their children, people are living in pain. Caring about equality means treating all death and suffering as a tragedy, not just that caused by specific diseases that we — by cruel twists of fate that thrust them into our field of view — happen to notice.
Making these decisions is really, really hard. But there is a set of thinking tools we can use to help us. This way of thinking is called effective altruism. It's basically the same as regular altruism (in that it emphasises the importance of helping other people) — the word 'effective' just means trying to think clearly about how your actions can help the most people, or do the most good.
I see effective altruism as a way of being able to better live up to values that we already hold.
This way of thinking is applicable to any way that we might want to do good — whether that be agitating for political change, choosing where we donate our money, or how to have a big impact with our careers.
In a world where there are so many worthy causes we could work on, it gives us a way out of decision paralysis, by systematically looking for ways to do the most good with our limited time and money.
It asks us to face up to some hard choices. But remember, we’re making these choices anyway, whether we think about them or not. So even though it might be hard to not donate to something that seems really important — whether for personal reasons, or because you’re convinced by a charity’s marketing pitch — remember that you’re always trading off against other worthy causes.
Here’s an example of this in action. The typical person in the UK donates around £6,700 ($9,600USD)[3] over the course of their working lifetimes. For this money we could fund the distribution of around 1,900 mosquito nets[4] (likely preventing around 200children from becoming really, really sick from malaria[5], and probably saving at least two or threelives). However, most voluntary donations go to domestic medical charities.[6] The UK’s National Health Service considers it good value to save one year of healthy life for around £25,000. [7]It’s highly unlikely that a domestic charity will beat this figure, so the typical donor’s impact is going to be many, many times less than it could otherwise be. Remember, just because we don’t think about these choices, doesn’t mean that they’re not there.
So please, think carefully about these ideas — the importance of altruism, equality, and doing as much as we can with our scarce resources — and see if they make sense to you.
If they do, then the next time you think about how to make the world a better place, give voice to these values by thinking effectively, as well as altruistically.
Some resources for learning more about effective altruism:
Pledge to keep donating over the course of your lifetime — 8,438 people (and counting) have pledged to donate 10% of their lifetime income to the most effective charities, and 798 have made pledges of 1% or more of their income for a custom period.
Choose a career that’s really high-impact by reading career advice from 80,000 Hours
Start a chapter or discussion group in your local area or at your university, and get other people interested in making a bigger difference
I’ve used the word ‘people’ in this article for convenience, but of course if you’re concerned with the welfare of non-human animals, then you could read this as ‘animals’ or ‘sentient beings’ etc. — the arguments all still apply
This is using the figure of around $5 per bednet distributed by the Against Malaria Foundation, which is correct for most places in which they operate. Some countries (such as DRC) are more expensive to work in, but even at the higher figure of $7.50 per net, you could still distribute 1,000 bednets.
This is the third in a sequence of posts taken from my recent report: Why Did Environmentalism Become Partisan?
Summary
Rising partisanship did not make environmentalism more popular or politically effective. Instead, it saw flat or falling overall public opinion, fewer major legislative achievements, and fluctuating executive actions.
Public Opinion...
I think right now EAs might be making a significant mistake by paying insufficient attention to the political realm. As EAs we tend to figure out what’s most impactful for us to work on and focus hard. That’s great! But there are various actions that are ‘non-delegatable’ - the extent to which an individual can do the action is limited (like voting, going to a protest, making hard money contributions to particular campaigns). It might be useful if we were all more in the habit of doing variou...
New Video from AI in Context: The Fall and Rise of Sam Altman
If you want to skip straight to the video, here it is!
AI in Context is excited to be back with our fourth video! For those just hearing from us, we make videos for 80,000 Hours, telling stories about transformative AI...
"People are equal" is clearly the weak link... given that you're trying to derive stuff like "I should value strangers as much as my children" from it. It's very wrong to say the inverse of "people are equal", given what you're trying to derive from it, is "racism is good."