Arete Fellowship

What the program is about

Effective altruism (EA) is an ongoing project to find the best ways to do good, and put them into practice.

This fellowship aims to introduce people to effective altruism in a structured manner. Our core goal with this program is to introduce you to some of the principles and thinking tools behind effective altruism. We hope that these tools can help you as you think through how you can best help the world.

We also want to share some of the arguments for working on specific problems, like global health or biosecurity. People involved in EA tend to agree that, partly due to uncertainty about which cause is best, we should split our resources between problems. But they don’t agree on what that split should be. People in the effective altruism community actively discuss and disagree about which causes to prioritize and how, even though we’ve learned a lot over the last decade. We hope that you will take these ideas seriously and think for yourself about which ways to help are most effective.

We don’t expect you’ll have an answer by the end of the six sessions, but we hope you’re better prepared to explore this further.

What the program involves

We provide a set of required readings before each meeting, each about 1.5h. We encourage you to take notes on ideas that you find intriuging or disagree with. The goal is to be able to discuss these ideas in the meeting. There is also additional materials for those who wish to explore a idea further.

How we hope you’ll approach the program

Often, conversations about ideas are recreational: we enjoy batting around interesting thoughts and saying smart things, and then go back to doing whatever we were already doing in our lives. This is a fine thing to do — but at least sometimes, we think we should be asking ourselves questions like:

“What evidence would it take to convince me that I was wrong about an idea?”

“If it is true, what does that imply I should be doing differently in my life? What else does it imply I’m wrong about?”

“How might this impact my plans for my career/life?”

And zooming out:

“Which important questions should I be thinking about that I’m not?”

“Do I really know if this idea/plan will help make things better or not?”

Answering these questions can help expand our worldviews, and by extension, help us make better decisions about things that we care about.

Disagreements are useful.

When thoughtful people with access to the same information reach very different conclusions from each other, try to understand exactly how and why their views disagree with yours.

If you’re doing it right, this program should be uncomfortable.

We are talking about real lives, and existential threats, biopolitics, conscience, and ultimately what we can do. Be aware of our privilege and the seriousness of these issues, we’re lucky to be in a position where we can have such a large impact, and this opportunity for impact is the consequence of a profoundly unequal world.

Week Syllabus:

Week 1:The effectiveness mindset

“We are always in triage. I fervently hope that one day we will be able to save everyone. In the meantime, it is irresponsible to pretend that we aren't making life and death decisions with the allocation of our resources. Pretending there is no choice only makes our decisions worse." -Holly Elmore, explaining the need to prioritize given our limited resources.

If you want to use your time or money to help others, you probably want to help as many people as you can. But you only have so much time to help, so you can have a much bigger impact if you focus on the interventions that help more people rather than fewer. But finding such interventions is incredibly difficult: it requires a "scout mindset" - seeking the truth, rather than to defend our current ideas. Key concepts from this session include:

Scope sensitivity: saving ten lives is more important than saving one, and saving a billion lives is a lot more important than saving ten.

Tradeoffs: Because we have limited time and money, we need to prioritize between different ways to improve the world.

Scout mindset: We’ll be better able to help others if we’re working together to think clearly and orient towards finding the truth, rather than trying to defend our own ideas. Humans naturally aren’t great at this (aside from wanting to defend our own ideas, we have a host of other biases), but if we want to really understand the world, it’s worth seeking the truth and trying to become clearer thinkers.

Required Materials

On effective altruism

Introduction to Effective Altruism: effectivealtruism.org (15 mins)
Article: Read the article (10 min read)

On Scope Sensitivity

On Caring: Minding our way (10 mins)
Scope Insensitivity: Scope insensitivity: failing to appreciate the numbers of those who need our help (5 min )

On scout mindset and thinking clearly

Why you think you're right - even when you're wrong: Ted Talk with Julia Galef (11 mins)
The bottom line: lesswrong (5 min )
What cognitive biases feel like from the inside: lesswrong (6 min )
Purchase fuzzies and utilons seperately: lesswrong (6 min )

On tradeoffs

We are in triage every second of every day: mhollyelmoreblog (5 mins)

On impact:

500 million, But Not a Single One more: (5 mins)

More to explore

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An introduction to 80000 hours: 80000 Hours Podcast (8 mins)
No matter your job, here's 3 evidence based ways anyone can have a real impact: 80000hours (24 mins)
Other-centered ethics and Harsanyi's aggregation theorem Forum Effective Altruism (107 mins)

Essays on Caring

The value of a life - minding our own way: mindingourway (15 mins)
Where does our own passion and excitement come in?: Excited Altruism - GiveWell (10 mins)

Week 2: Differences in impact

Around 700 million people still live in poverty, mostly in low-income countries. Efforts to help them - by policy reform, cash transfers, or provision of health services - can be incredibly effective.

Alongside investigating this issue, we also discuss how much more effective some interventions are than others, and we introduce a simple tool for estimating important figures.

Key concepts from this session include:

Differences in impact: It appears that some of our options to help do many times more good than others. People generally don’t appreciate this, and so miss out on significant opportunities to help.
Fermi estimates: When you’re trying to make a decision, it can be useful to make a rough calculation for which option is best. Even if there’s a lot of uncertainty, this can give you a rough answer, and can tell you which things are most important to estimate next.

Required Materials

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Differences in impact:

Comparing charities: How big is the difference? (5 mins.)
The moral imperative towards cost-effectiveness (10 mins.)

Fermi estimation

A brief explanation of Fermi estimation (1 min.)
An example Fermi estimate (1 min.)

Background data on global health and poverty:

Global economic inequality (Our World in Data, 15 mins.)
Global health (Our World in Data, 20 mins.)

“Classic” EA strategies for addressing global poverty:

GiveWell’s “Giving 101” guide (click through to “next” at the bottom of each page, about 15 mins., but feel free to explore the rest of the site).
Health in poor countries problem profile (10 mins.)

Some newer EA strategies for improving the wellbeing of humans living in poverty:

South Asian Air Quality Cause Investigation (18 mins.)
Introducing the Lead Exposure Elimination Project (7 mins.)
Note that these are just two examples of interventions that EAs have been working on - there are many more in the further reading section.

More to explore

GiveWell and Open Philanthropy

GiveWell and Open Philanthropy are sister organizations in the effective altruism community. Both seek to identify outstanding giving opportunities, but they use different criteria and processes.

GiveWell has an emphasis on evidence-backed organizations within the global health and wellbeing space, while Open Philanthropy also supports high-risk, high-reward work, as well as work that could take a long time to pay off, in a variety of cause areas. We think this illustrates interesting methodological differences between attempts to answer the question “How can we do the most good?”.

Our Criteria - GiveWell and Process for Identifying Top Charities - GiveWell (20 mins.)
Alexander Berger on Global health and wellbeing (3 hours)
Hits-based Giving - Open Philanthropy (45 mins.)

Cost-effectiveness methodology

Prospecting for Gold (55 mins.)
Finding the best charity requires estimating the unknowable. Here’s how GiveWell does it. (Podcast - 1 hour 45 mins.)
Why we can't take expected value estimates literally (even when they're unbiased)
List of ways in which cost-effectiveness estimates can be misleading - A checklist of things to keep in mind when using cost-effectiveness estimates. (25 mins.)
One approach to comparing global problems in terms of expected impact - 80,000 Hours - An outline of a more precise and quantitative version of the importance, neglectedness, and tractability framework; and details on how to apply it yourself (30 mins.)
A framework for comparing global problems in terms of expected impact - 80,000 Hours (25 mins.)
Subjective Confidence Intervals - Animal Charity Evaluators (10 mins.)
RCTs in Development economics, their critics and their evolution (18 mins.)
How to Measure Anything, Chapter 1 and 2 (50 mins.)

Mental health rather than physical health?

Donating money, buying happiness and Happiness for the whole household - (30 mins. between them) A cost effectiveness analysis that suggests that psychotherapy may be 9 times more effective than cash transfers (and thus competitive with GiveWell’s top charities).
Using Subjective Well-Being to Estimate the Moral Weights of Averting Deaths and Reducing Poverty (52 mins.) - Argument that subjective well-being is a better metric for determining value than physical health or wealth.

Other newer strategies for improving human wellbeing

Wave is a startup that is now the largest mobile money service in Senegal. Some of Wave’s founders and early employees worked on it because they believe that it’s an extremely effective way to improve the world.
Ben Kuhn, Wave’s CTO makes the case for founding a startup that serves emerging markets generally being an effective way of improving people’s lives.
Many people in the developing world commit suicide by drinking pesticide. It seems that we can significantly reduce suicide rates if we ban the more dangerous sorts of pesticide.
Charity Entrepreneurship has incubated a number of charities in this space, focused on interventions that they think could be highly effective. These include:

Effective aid

The lack of controversy over well-targeted aid - GiveWell (10 mins.)
Growth and the case against randomista development - An argument that research on and advocacy for economic growth in low- and middle-income countries is more cost-effective than the things funded by proponents of randomized controlled trials development. (1 hour - if you’re short on time, read Sections 1-3)
Save a life or receive cash? Which do recipients want? - IDinsight - Explores the preferences and values of individuals and communities in Ghana and Kenya to inform funding allocations. (10 mins.)

Criticisms of the use of cost-effectiveness estimates

Evidence, cluelessness, and the long term - Evidence covers only the more immediate effects of any intervention, and it's highly likely the vast majority of the value is thereby omitted from the calculation. (30 mins.)
Charity Cost-Effectiveness in an Uncertain World – Center on Long-Term Risk - Another way to deal with prioritization under uncertainty is to focus on actions that seem likely to have generally positive effects across many scenarios, rather than focusing on clear, quantifiable metrics. (30 mins.)
How not to be a “white in shining armor” - How GiveWell (as of 2012) tries to avoid “developed-world savior” interventions that don’t take into account local context (3 mins.)
Why Charities Usually Don't Differ Astronomically in Expected Cost-Effectiveness - An argument about how those in the effective altruism movement might overestimate the extent to which charities differ in their expected marginal cost-effectiveness. (40 mins.)

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Week 3: Radical empathy

“The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?” -Jeremy Bentham (1789)

Should we care about non-human animals? We'll show how it can be important to care impartially, rather than ignoring weird topics or unusual beneficiaries. We'll also cover expected value theory (which helps when we're uncertain about the impact of an intervention), and give some ideas for how we could improve the lives of animals that suffer in factory farms. Key concepts from this session include:

Impartiality: helping those that need it the most, only discounting people according to location, time, and species if those factors are in fact morally relevant.

Expected value: We’re often uncertain about how much something will help. In such circumstances, it may make sense to weigh each of the outcomes by the likelihood that they occur and pick the action that looks best in expectation.

The importance (and difficulty) of considering unusual ideas: Society’s consensus has been wrong about many things over history (e.g. the sun circling the Earth, the morality of slavery). In order to avoid making similar mistakes, we need to be open to considering unusual ideas and moral positions, while still thinking critically about the issues and acting cooperatively with others.

Required Materials

Impartiality and radical empathy

Radical Empathy: Open Philanthropy (10 mins)
Moral Progress and Cause X: Read the article (5 mins.)
On "fringe" ideas: Effective Altruism Forum (7 mins.)
The possibility of an ongoing moral catastrophe (summary): Effective Altruism Forum (8 mins.)

Expected value

Expected Value: Non-Trivial (5 mins.)
Hits based giving: Open Philanthropy (15 mins.)

The case for caring about animal welfare

All Animals Are Equal: Effective Altruism Forum — An excerpt from the opening chapter of Animal Liberation (1975), widely regarded as the founding text of the animal rights movement. (5 mins.)
Animal Welfare Cause report: Founders Pledge (10 mins.)

Strategies for improving animal welfare

Want to help animals? Focus on corporate decisions, not people’s plates: Vox (10 mins.)
How Students Will Lead the Alternative Protein Revolution: Amy Huang (26 mins.)
Animal Advocacy Careers: Animal Advocacy Careers (website, explore)

More to explore

An expanding moral circle?

The Expanding Circle, pg. 111-124 — ‘Expanding the Circle of Ethics’ section: Read the section (20 mins.)
The Narrowing Circle: Read the article (30 mins.) See also the summary and discussion.
Our descendants will probably see us as moral monsters. What should we do about that? 80,000 Hours — A conversation with Professor Will MacAskill. (Podcast - 1 hour 50 mins.)
The Possibility of an Ongoing Moral Catastrophe: Read the full text (30 mins.)

The case for caring about animal welfare

The Case Against Speciesism: Centre for Reducing Suffering (10 mins.)
Factory Farming: 80,000 Hours (5 mins.)
Should animals, plants, and robots have the same rights as you? Vox (20 mins.)
Animal Liberation, Chapter 3 - Down on the factory farm: Read the chapter (1 hour.)
2017 Report on Consciousness and Moral Patienthood: Read the report — An investigation into what types of beings merit moral concern. (6 hours, skimmable)
Suffering in Animals vs. Humans: Read the article (13 mins.)

Reforming animal agriculture

Dominion: Watch the film — Dominion uses drones, hidden and handheld cameras to expose the dark side of modern animal agriculture. (Film - 2 hours)
Food impacts: Food Impacts — A tool to explore the moral impact of different dietary choices.
A New Agricultural Revolution: Read/watch (~22 mins.; transcript available; Q&A after Friedrich’s talk is optional)

Wild animal welfare

Wild animal suffering: An introduction: Animal Ethics — An argument for us to take into account the wellbeing of animals that live in the wild. (10 mins)
Wild Animal Initiative’s FAQ: Wild Animal Initiative

Criticism of EA-related animal welfare work

How the animal movement could do even more good: Effective Altruism Forum (11 mins.)
EAA is relatively overinvesting in corporate welfare reforms: Effective Altruism Forum — There is also an interesting response to this post from Saulius in the first set of comments. (7 mins.)
Against the Moral Standing of Animals: Read the critique — Critique of arguments that animals deserve moral standing.
What’s Wrong with Speciesism? Read the article — Argument that animals do deserve moral standing, but lower moral status.

Week 4: Is this our final century? And why care?

Humanity appears to face existential risks: a chance that we'll destroy our long-term potential. We’ll examine why existential risks might be a moral priority, and explore why they are so neglected by society. Alongside this we'll introduce you to the concepts of neglectedness, marginal thinking, and explore whether you could lose all of your impact by missing one crucial consideration. We’ll also introduce the following concepts:

The importance, tractability, neglectedness (ITN) framework: The most important problems generally affect a lot of people, are relatively under-invested in, and can be meaningfully improved with a small amount of work.

Thinking on the margin: If you're donating $1, you should give that extra $1 to the intervention that can most cost-effectively improve the world. There are many great initiatives with a very high average impact per dollar that will have a low marginal impact because they can't get the same efficiency at scale (they display "diminishing marginal returns").

Longtermism: the view that improving the long term future is a key moral priority of our time, and we should try and form concrete predictions to aid in this. Central to this is also the ideas of impartiality, i.e. that we should help those that need it most.

You will also practice the skill of calibration, with the hope that when you say that something is 60% likely, it will happen about 60% of the time. This is important for making good judgments under uncertainty.

Required Materials

The future of humanity and longtermism

This Can't Go On: Cold Takes (15 mins.)
What We Owe the Future, Chapter 1: Effective Altruism Forum (22 mins)

S-risks and X-risks

X-risks: LessWrong (1 min)
S-risks: LessWrong (1 min)
The case for reducing existential risks: 80,000 Hours (25 mins.)

Thinking on the margin

Marginal Impact: Probably Good (5 mins.)

ITN framework

A framework for comparing global problems in terms of expected impact: 80,000 Hours (15 mins.)

More to explore

Global historical trends

How big a deal was the Industrial Revolution? Read the article (1 hour 20 mins.)
Three wild speculations from amateur quantitative macrohistory: Read the article (10 mins.)
Modeling the Human Trajectory: Open Philanthropy Project (30 mins.)

Forecasting

Efforts to Improve Accuracy in our Judgements and Forecasts: Open Philanthropy (10 mins.)
How accurate are Open Phil’s predictions? Effective Altruism Forum (18 mins.)
Efforts to Improve the Accuracy of Our Judgments and Forecasts: Open Philanthropy — Exploring the ways to work on and importance of improving our calibration.

The case for longtermism

Representing future generations: Read/watch — Political institutions generally operate on 2-to-4-year timescales which aren’t long enough to address global issues (as the issue of climate change has shown). This talk analyzes sources of political short-termism and describes institutional reforms to align government incentives with the interests of all generations. (Video - 30 mins.)
Blueprints (& lenses) for longtermist decision-making: Read the article — How are we supposed to apply longtermism in practice? The author outlines two concepts of a ‘blueprint’ and a ‘lens’ to clarify this issue. (7 mins.)
Major UN report discusses existential risk and future generations (summary): Effective Altruism Forum (18 mins.)

Suffering risks

S-risks: Why they are the worst existential risks, and how to prevent them: Longterm Risk (20 mins.)

Existential risks

Policy and research ideas to reduce existential risk: 80,000 Hours (5 mins.)
The Vulnerable World Hypothesis: Future of Humanity Institute — Scientific and technological progress might change people’s capabilities or incentives in ways that would destabilize civilization. This paper introduces the concept of a vulnerable world: roughly, one in which there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default. (45 mins.)

Biosecurity

Reducing Global Catastrophic Biological Risks Problem Profile: 80,000 Hours (1 hour)
The Apollo Report: Biodefense Commission
Global Catastrophic Risks Chapter 20 - Biotechnology and Biosecurity: Read the overview — Overview from ~15 years ago on how biotechnological power is increasing exponentially, as measured by the time needed to synthesize a certain sequence of DNA. This has important implications for biosecurity. (1 hour)
Open until dangerous: the case for reforming research to reduce global catastrophic risk: Watch the video (Video - 50 mins.)
Dr. Cassidy Nelson on the twelve best ways to stop the next pandemic (and limit COVID-19): 80,000 Hours Podcast (Podcast - 2.5 hours)
Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete and ending the new nuclear arms race: 80,000 Hours Podcast (Podcast - 2 hours)
Article on information hazards in biotechnology: Read the article (15 mins.)
Using Export Controls to Reduce Biorisk: Effective Altruism Forum (6 mins.)
Lynn Klotz on improving the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC): Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (10 mins.)
Horsepox synthesis: A case of the unilateralist’s curse?: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (8 mins.)

Climate Change

Climate Change Problem Profile: 80,000 Hours — An analysis of the worst risks of climate change, some of the most promising ways to reduce them, and how to prioritize climate change against other problems. (30 mins.)
Effective Environmentalism: Effective Environmentalism (Website)

Nuclear security

Daniel Ellsberg on the creation of nuclear doomsday machines: Read/listen — Daniel Ellsberg on the institutional insanity that maintains large nuclear arsenals, and a practical plan for dismantling them. (Podcast - 2 hours 45 mins.)
List of nuclear close calls: Wikipedia — A description of the thirteen events in human history so far that could have led to an unintended nuclear detonation. (5 mins.)
Risks from Nuclear weapons: Effective Altruism Forum — A series of posts exploring the extent to which nuclear risk reduction is a top priority, and the most effective ways to reduce nuclear risk.
Nuclear security: Effective Altruism Forum — Brief summary + relevant articles on the EA Forum.

Global governance and international peace

Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins on 8 years of combating WMD terrorism: Read/listen (Podcast - 1 hour 40 mins.)
Modeling Great Power conflict as an existential risk factor: Effective Altruism Forum (40 mins.)
Why effective altruists should care about global governance: Read/watch — Because global catastrophic risks transcend national borders, we need new global solutions that our current systems of global governance struggle to deliver. (Video - 20 mins.)
Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap: Book

Week 5: Risks from Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The field of AI is one of rapid advancements. It seems everyday there has been a new breakthrough, but also a new cause for concern. The ramifications of AI are already being felt, perpetuating through evermore areas of daily life. As Effective Altruists, people concerned with large-scale impact, we should try to be educated as possible as to the possible benefits, but also the possible existential risks, of AI. This week aims to provide an introduction to the debates within this cause area, and how Effective Altruists have been approaching reducing the potential risks regarding an AI-involved future. In this session you will also learn about Bayes’ rule, a guide to how to change your beliefs as you get new evidence.

Required Materials

The case for worrying about risks from artificial intelligence

The case for taking AI seriously as a threat to humanity: Read the article (20 mins.)
Why AI alignment could be hard: Cold Takes (18 mins.)
We’re not ready for superintelligence: Watch the video (34 mins.)
Alternate timelines: AI Multiple (8 mins.)

Is AI all bad?

AI and Science: DeepMind (10 mins.)
Recent discoveries with AI: UC San Diego (8 mins.)

Strategies for reducing risks from unaligned artificial intelligence

The longtermist AI governance landscape: a basic overview: Effective Altruism Forum (14 mins.)
Career review: AI Safety Researcher: 80,000 Hours (10 mins.)
Career review: AI Governance and Policy: 80,000 Hours (10 mins.)
Preventing an AI-related catastrophe: 80,000 Hours — Read the “What you can do concretely to help” section.

Bayes’ rule and evidence

Bayes’ rule: Guide: Arbital (15 mins. for the short version)
Making beliefs pay rent: LessWrong (5 mins.)
What is evidence?: LessWrong (4 mins.)

More to explore

The development of artificial intelligence

AlphaGo - The Movie - DeepMind: Watch the documentary — A documentary exploring what artificial intelligence can reveal about the 3000-year-old game of Go, and what that can teach us about the future potential of artificial intelligence. (Video - 1 hour 30 mins.)
The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 1: Read/watch — A fun and interesting exploration of artificial intelligence by the popular blogger Tim Urban. (45 mins.)

Other resources on aligning artificial intelligence

AGI Safety Fundamentals Curricula: AGI Safety Fundamentals
An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks: Safe.ai
My personal cruxes for working on AI safety: Effective Altruism Forum (65 mins.)
Resources I send to AI researchers about AI safety: Effective Altruism Forum (13 min)
Professor Stuart Russell on the flaws that make today's AI architecture unsafe & a new approach that could fix it: Read/listen (Podcast - 2 hours 15 mins.)
Some Background on Our Views Regarding Advanced Artificial Intelligence: Open Philanthropy Project — An explication of why there is a serious possibility that progress in artificial intelligence could precipitate a transition comparable to the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions. (1 hour)
How might we align transformative AI if it’s developed very soon?: Effective Altruism Forum (53 mins.)
The Precipice - Chapter 5 (pages 138-152) - Unaligned Artificial Intelligence: Read the chapter (25 mins.)
What Failure Looks Like: Alignment Forum — Two specific stories about what a very bad society-wide AI alignment failure could look like, which differ considerably from the classic “intelligence explosion” story. (12 mins.)
AGI Safety from first principles: Read the article — One AI researcher’s take on the specific factors for the problem of aligning general AI. (1 hour 15 mins.)
Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and The Problem of Control: Book
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values: Book

Governance for artificial intelligence

The new 30-person research team in DC investigating how emerging technologies could affect national security - 80,000 Hours: 80,000 Hours — How might international security be altered if the impact of machine learning is similar in scope to that of electricity? (Podcast - 2 hours)
Technology Roulette: Managing Loss of Control as Many Militaries Pursue Technological Superiority: Center for a New American Security — An argument for how advances in military technology (including but not limited to AI) can impede relevant decision making and create risk, thus demanding greater attention by the national security establishment. (60 mins.)

Technical AI alignment work

AI Alignment Landscape: AI Alignment (Video - 30 mins.)
AI safety starter pack: Effective Altruism Forum (7 mins.)
How to pursue a career in technical AI alignment: Effective Altruism Forum (59 mins.)
Technical Alignment Curriculum: EA Cambridge (readings for a 7 week course)
The Alignment Forum: Alignment Forum, especially their core sequences.

Criticisms of worries about AI risk

How sure are we about this AI stuff? Effective Altruism Forum (26 mins.)
A tale of 2.75 orthogonality theses: Effective Altruism Forum (20 mins.)
Counterarguments to the basic AI risk case: Effective Altruism Forum (41 mins.)
My highly personal skepticism brain bump on existential risk from artificial intelligence: Effective Altruism Forum (17 mins.)
How to know if AI is about to destroy civilization: Effective Altruism Forum (summary, 2 mins.)
The AI Messiah: Effective Altruism Forum (and the first comment) (5 mins.)
How good is humanity at coordination? LessWrong (4 mins.)

Week 6: Meta-EA

“It is one of the unfortunate truisms of the human condition that there is hardly a good idea, noble impulse, or sound suggestion that can't be (and isn't eventually) adopted and bastardized by zealots… One iteration of this tendency is in the idea of “effective altruism.”” -K. Berger & R. M. Penna

This session, we’ll give you time to reflect on what you think of effective altruism, and of the specific potential priorities you’ve heard about so far. Strong counterarguments (from both within and outside of the EA community) can help us avoid confirmation bias and groupthink, and get us a little closer to identifying the most effective ways to do good. I have attempted to compile some strong critiques across a wide range of topics. You may read them and think that they hold water. You may read them and think that they are weak. Either way, the goal of this session is to try and challenge some of the ideas put forward over the past five weeks. Hopefully, by the end of this fellowship, whether you leave with a positive or a negative impression of EA, that impression is at least nuanced with an understanding of the arguments on either side.

Required Materials

Introduction to Criticisms

Four categories of effective altruism critiques: Effective Altruism Forum (4 mins.)

Criticisms of EA Principles

Demandingness and Burnout: Demandingness and Burnout. Can we really do the right thing, all the time? (5 mins.)
The Repugnant Conclusion: Read the article — Total utilitarianism (maximizing overall wellbeing) implies that it’s better to have many many beings with infinitesimally positive wellbeing to a smaller number of beings that are all extremely well off. (6 mins.)
Utility monster: Read the article — Trying to maximize wellbeing may have counterintuitive implications. (5 mins.)

Systemic Issues

Response to Effective Altruism: Iason Gabriel (1 min.)
Capitalism, power and epistemology: a critique of EA: Matthew Doran (27 min.)
Is Effective Altruism Neocolonial?: Bob Jacobs (12 min.)

Controversy surrounding High Profile Figures in EA

Sam Bankman-Fried: 80,000 Hours (2 min.)
The Collapse: The Guardian (10 min.)
Bill Gates: Effective Altruism Forum (6 min.) See also links to Epstein.

Deference Culture

Deference Culture in EA, Joey: Effective Altruism Forum (6 min.)

CEA Mistakes

What is CEA?: Centre for Effective Altruism (2 min.)
Mistakes we’ve made: Centre for Effective Altruism (20 mins)