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Effective Altruism is Worse for the Poor - Dear Humanity
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This is an external critique of the Effective Altruism movement relevant to AI safety researchers who operate within or adjacent to EA; useful for understanding critiques of longtermism and the tension between near-term and long-term cause prioritization.
Metadata
Importance: 28/100opinion piececommentary
Summary
A critique arguing that Effective Altruism (EA) may inadvertently harm or deprioritize the interests of the global poor, examining structural and philosophical flaws in the EA movement's approach to poverty alleviation and resource allocation. The piece challenges EA's focus on longtermism and existential risk as potentially diverting resources from immediate human suffering.
Key Points
- •EA's shift toward longtermism and AI safety may systematically deprioritize immediate poverty relief affecting billions of living people.
- •The movement's emphasis on quantifiable impact metrics can disadvantage causes affecting the poor, whose suffering is harder to measure in EA-friendly terms.
- •EA's donor base and leadership are predominantly wealthy and Western, raising questions about whose priorities shape global charity allocation.
- •Critiques suggest EA frameworks can rationalize large wealth accumulation as 'doing good later' rather than redistributing now.
- •The piece questions whether EA's philosophical foundations serve as post-hoc justifications for inaction on systemic inequality.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA Global | Organization | 38.0 |
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### **Effective altruism is worse than traditional philanthropy in the way it excludes the extreme** **poor** **in the global south** **.**
By Anthony Kalulu [@KaluluAnthony](https://twitter.com/KaluluAnthony) \| December 3, 2022:
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I have spent the vast portion of my life in ultra poverty.
My region Busoga, is also Uganda’s [most impoverished](https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/world/busoga-region-needs-mindset-change-projects-t-146749), yet Uganda itself is among the poorest countries in Sub Saharan Africa. Although most people across Uganda live in chronic poverty, the level of destitution here in Busoga is unlike any other.
I first learned about the Effective Altruism (EA) movement around 2016, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.
To me, EA’s goal of getting people to use their wealth “to help others”, and “to do the most good in the world” — especially in the lives of the world’s ultra poor — gave the impression of a movement that was out to do something that traditional philanthropy couldn’t do, especially for the poor and marginalized.
Before EA came, traditional philanthropy had historically kept people like us as passive participants in the global fight against poverty, because traditional philanthropy both operates at arm’s length from the poor, and only allows [1%](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/nov/09/five-reasons-donors-give-for-not-funding-local-ngos-directly) of all global antipoverty funding to go directly to grassroots organizations in the global south.
That way, EA struck a chord with me. But not anymore.
The way I see it now, EA is even worse than traditional philanthropy in the way it excludes those of us who are directly battling ultra poverty in the global south.
First, albeit being a new and niche movement that it is, EA is no longer small in any way. Today, the movement is complete with its own [billionaire megadonors](http://axios.com/2022/08/13/institutionalized-altruism-philanthropy-strategy) in places like Silicon Valley and allover the world. And the more pronounced the concept of effective altruism has become, the more EA has swayed lots of young wealthy donors to embrace its ideology, making it the influential philanthropic movement that it is now.
So, for a movement whose remit is to do the most good in the world, and a movement that at least in theory seems more innovative than traditional philanthropy, one would expect EA to use that influence for the maximum benefit of the poor, or to help the world’s extreme poor in ways that traditional philanthropy couldn’t. Sadly, that is not what EA is.
In the name of being “effective”, EA has instead indoctrinated its followers to strictly support a small, select list of charities that have been labelled “most effective” by the movement’s own charity raters
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