Up@dawn 2.0 (blogger)

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Sunday, December 4, 2022

The Big Thing Effective Altruism (Still) Gets Right

The fall of Sam Bankman-Fried helps us see the movement’s vices, but that shouldn’t blind us to its virtues, either.

...If it would be monstrous to let a child drown in front of you because of a modest expense, then isn’t it monstrous to let a child die
a world away when the same modest expense might have saved his or her life?

If you buy into this thought experiment — and I largely do — then you face the difficult question of deciding where its logic ends. When the choice is your comfort or another’s life, then even the most modest luxuries come to seem immoral. Following this moral logic to its outer edges is manageable only for the saintliest among us — Larissa MacFarquhar’s “Strangers Drowning” is an unforgettable exploration of what that level of commitment looks like — but a bit more altruism is in reach for many of us. For me, Singer’s parable has been a provocation worth wrestling with and one that has substantially increased my annual giving..


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/opinion/charity-holiday-gift-givewell.html?smid=em-share

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