For me it emphasizes the importance of liberal arts degrees - since as an engineer I’d be even more susceptible to believe nonsense like that if I didn’t have the opportunity to mix with and learn from philosophy students. EA brain worms hit the engineering field hard, and the discourse is conspicuously devoid of actual discussions of ethics (outside of the bastardized versions which pass for “continuing education”)
This Machine Kills has a great episode on it and how it pretty much justifies techbros doing their thing and never helping anyone ever. It's a good but infuriating listen. A bunch of other podcasts did episodes on it around the same time
they should've stopped after figuring out malaria nets were the best ratio of lives saved per dollar.
looking for a new effective altruism
ask the charity manager if their effective altruism is bug nets or imaginary robots
she doesn't understand
pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is bug nets and what is imaginary robots
she laughs and says "it's a good effective altruism sir"
donate
it's imaginary robots
Even then, strict utilitarianism leads to some strange conclusions that feel wrong but are difficult to articulate why. On average, a $5,000 donation to the Malaria Consurtium saves someone's life^[https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/seasonal-malaria-chemoprevention] (although there is some variance). I haven't seen much doubt surrounding this number and it seems reasonable to me. However, if you want to optimize for total lives saved and someone were to give you a job as a hitman that paid a $10,000 donation to the Malaria Consurtium per kill, the utilitarian/effective altruisti would argue that it is immoral not to take the job, because one fewer person (on average) dies if you decide not to murder a random person for money. The reasoning makes perfect sense, but still feels so obviously wrong.
When you hear the trolley problem and are like, "where's the problem?"
hey did anyone donate to the malaria consortium the day luigi allegedly killed that guy?
Luigi was big on rationalism, so I wouldn't be surprised if he donated to them. Although his altruism is probably a bit more effective than a Malaria Consurtium donation, and a few orders of magnitude better than a MIRI donation.
I saw an effective altruist meetup once when walking through a uni and it took all my self control not to puke on the spot
Once I have attended one such meetup out of curiosity, I have seen a person mix whisky and chocolate milk into a large cup, which were both inexplicably present at the refreshment's table, then proceeded to drink that throughout the meeting. Really stuck with me
I'd bet real money that if you'd asked them about that, they'd have given you a weird answer about "optimizing" blood alcohol or something.
The good 'ol salted honey and bear fat cracker argument
Would like to see you use science and reason to disprove that beverage as the optimally altruistic drink.
By having that beverage as opposed to water they have given you a fun anecdote, adding to the total pleasure in the world. Bet you didn't even consider that, huh?
That was a Supereffective Altruist meetup, and they've perfectly executing the optimal choices for the world, which starts with making people hate techbro dipshits even more.
Okay but adding rum or whiskey to a chocolate milkshake is actually really tasty. I feel like chocolate milk isn't going to have enough fat content to stand up to that but in theory I can understand the combination of flavors.
Thank you, I have dry retched for the second time today
wow i never thought i'd hear anything worse than Dan Ryckert's "yellow russian"
vodka and
nacho cheese
Piss?
No, it's worse.
ok but vodka in a coffee with caramel is pretty good, gives off a similar vibe
Vomiting on them would've been the most effective action you could've taken to improve the lives of the most people.
More Everything Forever is my favorite book of the year!
The university I went to has an effective altruism club, which is almost as embarrassing as it also having a Harry Potter club.
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.