Embezzling from Effective Altruism

~ Berkeley college kids buy priciest pizzas to chat without results ~

TL;DR — It’s come due: “Effective Altruism”, the charity founded on the principle of being most effective in helping others… is now helping themselves. They gush hundreds of dollars to fly participants to international conference events, while all the ‘local organizers’ in Berkeley “had no time to respond to you” for five months at a time. They sit, talking about classes and shows, buying superfluous quantities of the most expensive pizzas in Berkeley (half of which became left-overs — ‘oopsies!’) in what they claim is a Meeting. I am still asking to have a serious, notes-and-all, detailed conversation with anyone about various ideas and concerns… since December of last year. It seems they want to avoid doing anything, while stuffing their faces. Actions speak louder than words, you know.

Hypocrisy

Berkeley, California’s college is funneling students into their Effective Altruism chapter… to act like college students, not altruists. They even shared memes validating the version of altruism which “spends money on my own restaurant meals, because my time is so valuable, because I’m doing a little charity-work.” Claiming that your time is valuable enough to deserve being underwritten necessitates STELLAR RESULTS. Those “buy me dinner” altruists haven’t shown any. These “Effective” altruists often claim to be consequentialists —I request of them, for their own integrity, that Give Well audit the Berkeley chapter of Effective Altruism: to see if those students are being “effective” enough to justify all those expenses on themselves.

Their OWN Profligacy-Aggrandizing Meme:

I’d like to highlight a few of that Chad’s qualities — “asks CEA to sponsor his flights, airbnb retreats and dinners”, “only orders UberEats because he values his time”.

Real-World Issues:

• Too Much Expensive Food, etc. — excessive pizzas, retreats and conferences — specifically, the Lodge bought $250 of Zachary’s pizza for ten people… (why aren’t you Zooming, Effectives? If you claim “face-to-face is better” — I do also! And yet, your EA members keep refusing face-to-face with me! They insist, instead: go the EA Forum. “What’s good for the goose is good for the…”)
• “Meetings” without Consequential Results — chatting about classes instead of laying down real world plans and making commitments, taking actions. I see no deeper corruption than sloth; I volunteer my time, while these folks are being paid by a charity to mingle.
• No Follow-Through — months, each, with more than a half dozen ‘local organizers & longtime members’; each sending me to the Forum to be ignored and mis-represented, or claiming that they will ‘respond soon’ after four months and more spent ignoring repeated messages.

The OTHER Icky

I am still amazed that, months after an EA member admitted privately that she and another EA member in good standing had been “blacklisted”… there has been no word of justice, no transparency and accountability. Instead, that EA member only hoped to get BACK on the Blacklister’s ‘good side’?! That is a fearful submission to evil which is hiding in a position of authority. Obviously, not altruistic.

This same pattern arises on the EA Forum: while the ‘regulars’ engage in detailed and thoughtful discussion, there are also people bringing ‘outside’ views who are misrepresented or handled repeatedly and persistently — I have heard responses from a few others in that boat, commiserating with my experiences on that forum. When they saw how others used Strawman Arguments and lured the listener into suppositions, those forum-users responded to the attacks made against me, and offered support in private messages, even as the persecutors denied that their misrepresentations were in any way the wrong choice.

[[ I remember, in counter-example, when I was 13, 14, 15, and 16 years old, back in the 90’s: I was a moderator on a large philosophy message board, dozens of new posts each day, hundreds of regulars. We caught abuse. Yet, Effective Altruism, which is sitting on $30 Billion dollars and hiring organizers who organize retreats that train you to organize retreats — these guys can’t figure out how to moderate their international organization’s forum? No excuses — you cannot claim “Effective” if you can’t get the basics right. ]]

Most tellingly, that sly, smooth-trolled Forum of theirs has multiple posts from outsiders trying to express their concern and frustration… and multiple posts from the regulars where they postulate some ‘small potential that we might be a little bad maybe in some ways’, in which they conclude: ‘actually, we’re probably great and that’s good enough for me.’ Self-congratulatory ‘critique’ and too many expensive pizzas. Give Well should audit that charity.