Back
Why Effective Altruism and Longtermism Are Toxic Ideologies - Current Affairs
webcurrentaffairs.org·currentaffairs.org/news/2023/05/why-effective-altruism-an...
A polemical critique of EA and longtermism from a left-progressive outlet; useful for understanding prominent ideological objections to the AI safety community's philosophical foundations, but not a technical or empirical analysis.
Metadata
Importance: 38/100opinion piececommentary
Summary
A critical essay arguing that Effective Altruism and longtermism are ideologically harmful frameworks that distort moral priorities, concentrate power among elites, and obscure present-day injustices in favor of speculative future concerns. The piece contends these movements provide philosophical cover for the wealthy to avoid structural change while feeling virtuous. It represents a left-leaning critique of EA's utilitarian calculus and longtermism's focus on existential risk.
Key Points
- •EA and longtermism are critiqued for prioritizing speculative far-future harms over urgent, present-day suffering and structural injustice.
- •The essay argues these ideologies disproportionately reflect the values and interests of wealthy tech elites rather than broader humanity.
- •Longtermism is accused of providing intellectual justification for accumulating power and resources under the guise of saving humanity.
- •The utilitarian calculus underlying EA is challenged as reductive, ignoring systemic causes of harm in favor of individualistic charity.
- •The piece situates these critiques in the broader context of FTX's collapse and Sam Bankman-Fried as emblematic of EA's failures.
Cited by 3 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA and Longtermist Wins and Losses | -- | 53.0 |
| Longtermism's Philosophical Credibility After FTX | -- | 50.0 |
| EA Global | Organization | 38.0 |
Cached Content Preview
HTTP 200Fetched Mar 20, 202650 KB
Hide menu
About
[Print Magazine](https://www.currentaffairs.org/magazine)
[Team](https://www.currentaffairs.org/team)
[Pitch Form](https://www.currentaffairs.org/writers-guide)
[FAQ](https://www.currentaffairs.org/faq)
[Subscribe](https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership)
[Issues Archive](https://www.currentaffairs.org/issues)
[Articles](https://www.currentaffairs.org/news)
[Shop](https://shop.currentaffairs.org/)
[Podcast](http://patreon.com/currentaffairs)
[News Briefing](https://www.currentaffairs.org/news-briefing)
[Donate](https://www.currentaffairs.org/donate)
# Why Effective Altruism and “Longtermism” Are Toxic Ideologies
Intellectual historian Émile P. Torres explains how Silicon Valley’s favorite ideas for changing the world for the better actually threaten to make it much, much worse.
- [Current Affairs](https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/author/current-affairs)
filed 07 May 2023
in [Interviews](https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/tag/interviews)
[Émile P. Torres](https://www.xriskology.com/) is an intellectual historian who has recently become a prominent public critic of the ideologies of “effective altruism” and “longtermism,” each of which is highly influential in Silicon Valley and which Émile argues contain worrying dystopian tendencies. In this conversation with _Current Affairs_ editor in chief Nathan J. Robinson, Émile explains what these ideas are, why the people who subscribe to them think they can change the world in very positive ways, and why Émile has come to be so strongly critical of them. Émile discusses why philosophies that emphasize voluntary charity over redistributing political power have such appeal to plutocrats, and the danger of ideologies that promise “astronomical future value” to rationalize morally dubious near-term actions. The conversation originally [appeared on the _Current Affairs_ podcast](https://www.patreon.com/posts/where-effective-79454375) and has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
### Nathan J. **Robinson**
My worry about this conversation is that you and I agree, for the most part, about [Effective Altruism](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/09/defective-altruism) and [longtermism](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/07/the-dangerous-ideas-of-longtermism-and-existential-risk). We have both written about these things. And so we might end up speaking in ways that assume familiarity with them. So
... (truncated, 50 KB total)Resource ID:
a926daa06c0b45a2 | Stable ID: ZjQzZmZlNW