The Road to Hell is Paved with Effective Altruism
Two Cheers for Ineffective Altruism - or for altruism that is measured by the people receiving it, not by the people giving it. Maybe love is a better word.
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A few years ago, I found myself as a participant (really a bystander) in a (translated) conversation with a young mother in Katsekera, Malawi. Katsekera is a small village, or set of villages some distance off the main highway near the Mozambique border. There was a feeding and learning center for children as part of an effort to help families in this village and this mother, along with her small child lived near the center - actually within sight. But, though her daughter was eligible to attend the center, her attendance was very sporadic. It turns out that a combination of mistrust, fear, and entrenched living habits were influencing the mother to keep her child at home. This conversation, conducted by her fellow village members, was an attempt to understand why and to alleviate her fears. I think it was mostly successful. But, measured by scalability or world-historical impact, it was not - to use a phrase that has popped up recently - effective altruism. It was ineffective - in the sense of changing the world, or turning the tide of poverty in Malawi - which is the sense meant by the proponents of effective altruism.
I have read about (and have been unimpressed by) the concept of effective altruism for a few years, but it has been the subject of more public discussion recently because one of it’s champions and guiding lights was a young man named Sam Bankman-Fried. SBF, as he is sometimes known, seems to have presided over the fall of FTX, the crypto exchange that he founded and Alameda Research, his crypto investment firm. In this fall, SBF has been accused of multiple accounts of fraud. It seems that billions of investor dollars are unaccounted for.
Elizabeth Holmes had a similar set of motivations with a similar set of results.
More on this in a minute - but let’s look a little closer at Effective Altruism.
Effective Altruism claims to want to accomplish the most good for the most people - that is its definition of effective - scalability of good and of people. And a lot of young, smart, and, it seems, non religious people of means and influence have begun to champion it of late. My working, if not slightly unfair, definition goes something like this: ‘we are smart, we have means, we can figure out how to solve or address the big, sweeping problems of the world and we are prepared to do what is necessary to accomplish those ends.’
So what’s my problem with Effective Altruism (or EA, because I am lazy and it is much more effective just to type two letters)? The most good for the most people - who is against that? Well, in practice, I think I am. I don’t, in the end, think those two words go together very well. Altruism is doing good for the sake of others, without regard to my own interests or credit. Love is another word for it, though very few people would advocate for effective love. ‘Love’ and ‘effective’ don’t go together very well, at least by my understanding of love. The proponents of EA seem to think they know what is altruistic, what is good, and what is effective - I don’t think they do - but the concept of loving others is either absent or an abstraction. Claiming to do the most good for the most people implies a claim on how to help at scale, but it also implies a claim on what is good. It implies that helping (or loving) individuals is ineffective, while assuming that they know what will help at scale. It seeks not to address the needs of individuals, preferring to solve the problems of the world. It, in other words, places the rich and influential practitioners of EA in the place of God. We all can put ourselves in this place from time to time - but this move is intentional, and we are never up to this particular task.
Effective Altruism (EA) would not concern itself with the young mother in Katsekera - not as an individual, at least. It might see her as a symbol of rural poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, if anything. More likely, it gives her no thought at all. It would view a trust-building conversation with her as a waste of resources (the resources of the educated, rich world needed to help poor Africans out of poverty - not to put too fine a point on it). Attempting to build trust with one mother in one village is, in these terms, ineffective. I hope at this point, if you haven’t already, you begin to see the problem with the word ‘effective’ here - and the emptiness of the word ‘altruism’.
Large, structural changes are what EA is concerned with. One aspect of EA, to illustrate this point, is longtermism. The benefit of humanity in the long term is of the utmost importance. Whatever is thought to benefit this end is worth doing, by definition. There are real problems when this approach is pursued ‘objectively’ and ‘thoroughly’.
Some proponents of EA would be willing to justify a pretty high price to “effectively” do “good”. In fact, some would claim that it makes sense to bolster the lives of those in rich countries, since the solutions to the problems of humanity are more likely to be found there. If that means, in the short term, more people in poorer countries die - that is worth it if “humanity” is “saved”.
Nick Beckstead, the philosopher at the helm of the Future Fund, remarked in his 2013 dissertation, “Richer countries have substantially more innovation, and their workers are much more economically productive. By ordinary standards—at least by ordinary enlightened humanitarian standards—saving and improving lives in rich countries is about equally as important as saving and improving lives in poor countries, provided lives are improved by roughly comparable amounts. But it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country.” (The New Yorker - August 8, 2022)
Again, who is against the benefit of humanity in the long term? I am not - but I don’t think I will come to the same definition of benefit and I don’t believe that any cost borne for this benefit is worth it. I don’t think, in other words, that this end justifies any means. I believe that some means violate our (individual) humanity. I believe that counting some people more worth saving according to some mathematical algorithm because it “benefits” “humanity” in the long term is, well, wicked is the biblical word that applies. Generously, we can call it simply misguided.
Christianity would claim that any “good” that violates individual humanity is not good. It teaches that death is not the worst outcome for an individual - betraying their humanity, for one, is worse - and betraying the humanity of others may be also. Christianity would claim that God defines what is good - and would admit that we are not very good at deciding what is good on our own. It would warn us that we are poor judges of our own motivations and we can’t be trusted with God-like powers.
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
(Jeremiah 17:9)
Proponents of EA, including SBF, often justified doing whatever is necessary to accumulate large sums of money as long as it could be described as helping the world. Earning to give, SBF called it. Is that what he told himself?
Elizabeth Holmes appears to have lied over a long period of time in an effort to raise money and buy time for her (what she believed would be) world changing medical technology. Sam Bankman-Fried appears to have stolen lots of money from customers, some of which was donated to politicians and to charities all while promoting effective altruism. They both appear to have been very persuasive in their apparent deceptions. Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely offered an explanation for this in the HBO documentary on Elizabeth Holmes - "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley," Dr. Ariely describes an experiment involving participants rolling a dice and then reporting on their prediction after the roll, and being rewarded for being correct. When a lie detector was employed, it was shown, unsurprisingly, that people sometimes lied. Even if they knew their lie might be uncovered. Then, as journalist Andy Kiersz explains, the experiment was changed in a way that impacted the motivations of the participants -
Instead of receiving the money themselves, participants were told that the money won playing the die game would go to the charity of their choice. In this version of the experiment, Ariely said that participants lied more often to get bigger financial rewards for the charity — and the lie detector was no longer able to reliably tell when participants were being dishonest.
Ariely offered Gibney an explanation for why the lie detector stopped working when participants were playing for charity. "The lie detector detects tension. 'I want more money, but I think it's wrong.' But if it's not wrong, why would you worry? If it's for a good cause, you can still think you're a good person."
This notion illustrates how it's possible for someone to commit fraud, as Holmes is accused of doing, while still believing fully in one's actions. Cheating in the service of altruism isn't "really" cheating, and is therefore morally justifiable.
Sam Bankman-Fried thought he could stay ahead of the financial shell game he was playing (and he seemed to be aware it was a shell game), but he also seemed to think he was saving the world. Elizabeth Holmes had a similar set of motivations leading to a similar set of actions. And that, to them, justifies some investors possibly being financially ruined. Is it really lying if it is saving the world? Is it really theft? Is it really selfishness? Is it really wrong? Yes. The answer is yes.
Two Cheers for Ineffective Altruism (or, as it is also known, Love)
The God who is in control of the long term, who is the Author of this big story we are in, is described as being Love. This God tells us to love one another. He does not tell us to weigh this love on a scale of efficiency. Be wise in helping others, of course - wisdom in all things is good. But that will involve understanding them on their terms, building trust, sacrificing for them … all of which takes time and effort and is often very “ineffective.” Christians are called to be faithful - even if we don’t see how this faithfulness is effective. Loving your enemies seems crazy, with no return promised and a negative return likely. We are commanded to do it anyway. Defining love isn’t up to us.
Good thing.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
(1 John 4:7-12)
One might argue that God’s love for us is not always “effective”. I am grateful that God’s love is not filtered through the test of “efficiency”. As we seek to live out the image of God in the world, we should be wary of filtering our love as well.
Links
How Not to Do Charity - Francisco Toro - Persuasion
The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism - Gideon Lewis-Kraus - The New Yorker
How effective altruism went from a niche movement to a billion-dollar force - Dylan Matthews - Vox
Sam Bankman-Fried interview before his apparent fraud was uncovered - Crypto CEO Accidentally Describes Ponzi Scheme
A behavioral economist explains why Elizabeth Holmes might not have felt bad lying about Theranos - Andy Kiersz - Business Insider
HBO documentary on Elizabeth Holmes - "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,"
Sam Bankman-Fried’s first post-scandal public interview was a riveting train wreck - Whizy Kim - Vox
