The Good it Promises, the Harm it Does might seem like a bit of a niche critique from someone who's never heard of the "effective" altruism movement. However, the type of nonsense peddled by EA is linked to greater societal norms and trends- many of which are addressed aptly in this collection. Many of us have utilitarian ethics dancing around somewhere in our belief system and many of us have also likely been harmed or have seen harm from reckless prejudice in said utilitarian outlooks.
EA proponents span a variety of movements, but most of my experience with them comes in the realm of animal rights and environmental movements. Most of the entries in this text also focus on them there. EA proponents range in level of knowledge from newer people who joined up purely because they bought the sales pitch that they will do the most good there, and big name philosophers like Peter Singer (who seems to be at a level of renown where he's unable to see outside of his own perceived genius.) I already had issues with Singer before this, but I found myself even more irritated with him after reading more examples of frankly base level ignorant judgements of his with far reaching negative effects, if only from the reach and notoriety he has.
Effective Altruists essentially claim that they're using reason and analysis to make sure that efforts and donations are funneled into organizations doing the most amount of good. Many people may already have alarm bells going off when they read that, but if you don't, that's ok, keep reading. TGIPTHID is a collection that tackles the issues with their approach from a variety of angles. One of the books biggest strengths is the varying backgrounds that the authors come from ranging from community organizers in densely populated cities to rural farm sanctuary workers and jargony academics. Each entry offers a variety of critiques and as a whole, I struggle to think of how anyone actually absorbing the info could defend EA after reading it.
As one entry mentions, the compartmentalization and numbers game are flawed from the start. Should we stop helping endangered species since there are so few of them left in comparison to larger populations of farmed animals? Do individuals ever matter? What about when that individual touches millions of lives and changes them forever? Others mention the racial make up of EA being almost entirely white, leading to a list of recommendations that reflect what the members see as most effective (which is amplified by their complete lack of understanding of data analysis.) There is an effect of how EA functions similarly to how billionaires choosing what research is important does- they choose what they like, and think is important, causing more marginalized yet important efforts to be buried and exponentially increasing the support for ineffective and/or already dominant efforts. There is also a very patriarchal element in assuming that one can actually do anything based on 100% "reason" devoid of emotion- allowing men's emotional decisions more space since they're automatically seen as more reason oriented and grounded in reality despite evidence to the contrary. One of the most frustrating things about EA that I have known about the longest is their offensively bad understanding of statistics and research. Even if one could argue that their methods and philosophy were defensible (they aren't,) they aren't even calculating things in a way that gives an accurate picture of the numbers.
All of these problems and more result in EA making recommendations for funding and effort that cause already underfunded movements to get even less funding and the most popular, wealthy, well known movements to get even more. When you're doing shoddy statistical analysis and only looking at variables without proper understanding of various effects, of course the organization with a budget of millions of dollars is "more effective" than the small community organization in a poor area. Even experts in statistics debate about how to best analyze and understand data. EA runs through it all like doing 2nd grade math offers the pure truth.
The entries of this book truly help draw attention to just how dangerous EA is. I do not blame those who are new to it and don't know better. But, the men like Singer white knuckling their way through and sniping at various efforts to try to lend more legitimacy to their self centered view of things us indefensible. Furthermore, what makes Singer so important? Since medical care for individual rescued animals - even when it results in improved medical treatment for others across the board- is a waste of money, wouldn't Singer save more lives if he died and donated each of his organs to someone in need? He could donate all of his income after death to organizations. Actually, wouldn't we be more effective if the Global North all died since we consume the most resources? Singer already argues that disabled people have less worth, will he be ending things when he, like anyone who ages and stays alive, becomes disabled?
This "rational" way of looking at these calculations in the most shallow levels is a ridiculous way to assess effectiveness. It not only can be used to go the route of fascism like my last example, but it forces people into seeing a tiny sliver of the big picture- similar to assuming that removing a human heart and tossing it onto a table gives one a picture of the function of the entire body's systems working together.
All in all, reading this book would benefit just about anyone. These ideas are all around us all the time. Unfortunately, there is no perfectly effective way to funnel money into a single org that can rid us of the stain these issues leave upon us.
This was also posted to my goodreads.
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