zlacker

It truly is astonishing. We have kids who cannot afford school lunches, people working multiple blue-collar jobs and yet the problems of people who are statistically better off than average constantly jump to the front. People complain about Effective Altruism because of one dude messing up big but it would behoove everyone to read up on the basic philosophy of it before suggesting how we best spent billions to help reduce suffering.

>>ajmurm+(OP)
The problem with EA is in judging what is effective. Perhaps ridding the unforgivable student loans of parents actually helps the kids more than school lunches.

And frankly, some of the most effective altruism may be just to directly give cash to people, yet I don't know how many people in the EA community would trust people so much with unconditional cash.

>>jimkle+q21
there are many many problems with the EA movement, but they do generally support unconditional cash transfers.

cash transfers are seen as the "default" baseline. the bar for charity is that it must be better than cash transfers. they do find some such charities that they claim are even better than cash transfers, but they are totally comfortable with giving people unconditional cash.

>>currym+0e1
ah ok, i appreciate the clarification and am grateful to hear that. I think I've worried that the EA movement often has an obsession with optimization, which can lead to getting the absolute best perfect solution and become really dehumanized in the process.

But as I said, I'm glad to hear that unconditional cash is gaining traction with those folks, as I think it not only gives someone financial resources but also trust.

> And this trust — another resource it’s difficult to measure — is the aspect of gifts that many have said they value most.

The above is an excerpt from MacKenzie Scott's essay, "No Dollar Signs This Time." [0] I really appreciate the approach she is taking, which seems to be especially embracing the uncertainty of it all and trusting people to do what they believe is best.

[0]: https://yieldgiving.com/essays/no-dollar-signs-this-time

>>ajmurm+(OP)
People complain about effective altruism because they just talk about mosquito nets instead of anything like this.

Also, who is the person that "screwed up big"? I'm guessing you mean SBF but my view is that MacAskill is an outright shuckster.