An influential ethical philosopher is on his way to address a conference of wealthy donors about effective altruism. His rhetorical power and keen arguments are such that he can expect these donors to reach deep and double their donations to yet worthier causes after his talk. On his way to the conference, however, he comes across a child drowning in a pond. He is the only one around who can save this child, but to do so, he would have to jump in the pond, ruin his humble but respectable second-hand suit, and miss the train to the conference. While he would certainly have a good excuse to give to the donors, before he would have the opportunity to do so they would probably leave the conference feeling resentful at the waste of their valuable time, rather than generous and inspired. He figures he can save more lives by letting the child drown and instead catching his train to the conference, so he turns his back on the pond.
I now decide upon my stock portfolio by throwing a dart at a dart board.
If you only put S&P 500 companies on the dart board, your investment strategy will in long term resemble investing in passive index funds, which I was told is the smartest way to invest money.
People are leaving a lot of money on the table for status reasons. Deciding the portfolio by throwing a dart yourself is considered low-status, paying fees to credentialed people to do the same thing is considered high-status.
tl;dr - investing at stock market is not about investing at stock market
I don’t know why you’re getting so many downvotes (okay fine I do it’s because of your tone). Nevertheless, this is an awesome post.
Crosspost of this, on my blog.
Effective altruism, the capitalist ultracapitalist movement in favor of capitalism and capitalism, is a white cishet settler colonialist movement. It talks a big game about doing good effectively but then some people in the movement said bad things in 1996—so how good can it really be? It talks about helping people, but many people in the movement are white—sounds like white saviorism to me! The movement is partially about longtermism, making the future go well by reducing existential risks, but that sounds pretty weird and involves big numbers.
[Insert several paragraphs of sneering].
Effective altruism tries to do good effectively, but Sam Bankman Fried was involved with the movement, and he was a bad hombre. Also, doing good by preventing kids from getting malaria involves saving—sounds like WHITE SAVIORISM, the horrifying consequence of white people trying to do good things.
After reading Alice Crary’s very serious complaints about the fact that EA “positions rich people as ‘saviors’ of the poor,” I knew I had to act differently. That is why, when this morning I saw a poor black child drowning in a river, I ignored him entirely. While his parents called on me to save him—for they were too far away—I knew better than to engage in white saviorism. Hadn’t these people ever heard of colonialism? Who am I to position myself as a savior of the poor?
I no longer work a job or go to school. After all, Sam Bankman Fried worked a job and went to school. I now decide upon my stock portfolio by throwing a dart at a dart board. As I learned from the wise sage Alice Crary, the world is more complicated than objective, numerical metrics. For this reason, rather than relying on racist numerical metrics, I now put all my money in Doge Coin. Using objective metrics is problematic in charitable giving, one should trust their gut; my gut is that Doge Coin is going to the moon!
I learned from Freddie deBoer that EA is trivial—everyone supports doing good effectively. Similarly, putting one’s money in stocks that are likely to pay off is trivial—everyone supports it. When I put my money in doge coin and when you put your money in general funds, we are the same. We are both involved in effective investment—you just have the hubris to think you’re the only one doing it.
From Leif Wenar I learned that effective altruism has a perverse hero complex and that it’s a terrible thing because it’s possible to think of several downsides to it. For this reason, I encouraged my friend who was a cancer surgeon to stop treating people for cancer. Doesn’t he know that radiation has downsides? He wasn’t convinced, but that was no doubt his hero complex speaking.
Wenar also taught me that it’s arrogant for EAs to think of themselves as being responsible for saving lives via giving to the against malaria foundation. If an EA funds anti-malarial bednets, they’re not responsible for saving lives. Instead, whoever put up the bednets is responsible for saving the lives. This is why, when I saw my friend choking, I didn’t perform the Heimlich maneuver—after all, if I did so I wouldn’t get credit for saving his life. Instead, Henry Heimlich would get the credit. Boy do I love making Parfit’s first mistake in moral mathematics.
From Lyman Stone, I learned that EA isn’t effective because since it started getting involved in anti-malarial work, progress has stagnated. Owing to this principle deducible from pure reason that correlation is causation, I decided to start the mayhem and death political party, dedicated to killing all five-year-olds. Since they were born, at around the time of Corinavirus, progress on fighting disease stagnated!
After learning from the vitalists that EA makes us coddled and soy, preventing people from having toughening, formative experiences like dying of malaria, I decided to drown a puppy in a local pond. Hopefully, doing so would toughen its character, rather than allowing it to succumb to modern frailty.
From Mary Townsend, I learned that claims that one can do good by donating are eeeeeevil. As she says:
That one could become good through monetary transactions should raise our post-Reformation suspicions, obviously. As a simple response to the stipulation of a dreadful but equally simple freedom, it seems almost designed to hit us at the weakest spots of our human frailty, with disconcerting effects.
That’s why, when a man holding 100,000 people at gunpoint was going to kill them all unless I gave him a penny, I didn’t give him the penny. Sorry 100,000 people, wouldn’t want my attempt to good through monetary transactions to raise post-reformation suspicions.
Over time, however, I learned this wasn’t enough. From the critics of EA, I learned that one is morally required to be neutral in situations of injustice. But it isn’t enough to do nothing. If fighting malaria is white saviorist capitalist colonialism that makes there be more malaria and causes people to become coddled, then it isn’t enough to do nothing.
That’s why I’ve decided to start injecting poor children with malaria. Because the EAs are doing such evil things, someone needs to start doing the opposite. If I inject enough kids with malaria, maybe that could stop white people from being positioned as saviors of the world’s poor. Instead, such an action is an important first step in grappling with the reality that white people are often villains from the perspective of the global poor.
As I learned from Wenar, I can’t be responsible for their deaths. After all, the most proximate cause of their deaths is the doctor that fails to treat them and the mosquito that bites them. I’m wholly without blame and saying I am blameworthy devalues the work of mothers who put up malaria nets.
Because malaria nets are so bad, I’ve started ripping down malaria nets. If malaria net actions by EAs have caused more malaria, as Lyman Stone claims, then we should start ripping down malaria nets. In the name of justice, fighting capitalism, and ending colonialism, I’ve started injecting children with malaria.
I spent years pulling children out of ponds. But now I realize doing so is morally wrong. To offset my negative impact, I’ve started pushing children back into ponds. Such will bring about a global anti-capitalist revolution, for we all know that it’s just one effective altruism movement away from becoming reality. I hope one day you’ll join me, and the world will live as one.