Effective Altruism, longtermism and transhumanism is also deeply rooted in eugenics. Historian Émile P. Torres wrote an article in May this year in the magazine "Current Affairs", it's worth a read.

@CryptoCriticPod

11 ай бұрын

There’s definitely a lot of eugenicists in the community. I mentioned Leverage Research in the episode and one of their early members was a white nationalist

I like the way you guys pick this apart. I would add that a possible reason AE found such fertile ground is because so many charities were/are flat out scams. Also it was pretty common to make a charity where your children just happened to be involved pulling a huge salary.

@CryptoCriticPod

11 ай бұрын

Doesn’t sound particularly effective when you put it like that

@picahudsoniaunflocked5426

11 ай бұрын

Good point as an entangled issue --- there's been a total mania for anyone, an individual or corporation, who wants to do anything "good" to launch their own charity instead of seeking to partner with proven, established, effective independent organizations since the 90s & it hurts in so many ways, not just nepotism/scam-adjacent/tax fraud stuff but replication of unnecessary bureaucracy or advocacy, contributing to public misperceptions or fatigue about charitable issues or donations, starving effective organizations of funds, distorting messaging, abusing government policy, fronting for destructive company activities, giving government excuses not to fix/fund certain things, not having proper oversight or transparency, "charismatic" causes sucking up all the attention, on & on & on.

Man, income inequality is such a big issue. We should do something about it. What's the best way to go about it? Oh, I know. I'm going to try to get as rich as possible. I pinky promise cross my heart that I'll give it all up to the poors sometime in the nebulous future when I'm "done".

@bimsherwood7006

11 ай бұрын

The current strat is to wait for the riches to die and hope their kids fritter it away.

@willschryver

11 ай бұрын

​@@bimsherwood7006Sounds like a form of "trickle-down" economics to me

@TheDavidlloydjones

7 ай бұрын

@@bimsherwood7006 Shure is great to have a club i can join to tell everybody how altruistic I am...

@phnix6242

Ай бұрын

Haha you dont really believe that?

@barorepor3079

28 күн бұрын

Agreed, this pseudo-philantropic philosophy sounds to me it like an attempt by billionaires to try to justify income inequalities.

I've actually met a few Nauruans. Lovely people, very generous and friendly. Also really strong (I met them through powerlifting)

@phnix6242

Ай бұрын

Also very diabetes and smoking cigarettes

As a philosophy major (and a fan of the non-occult sect of EA myself) - Bennett's description and categorisation of the risks associated with hyper-rational, techno-utopic longtermists were simply fucking perfect.

This channel is one of the best in this industry

Also one thing I think that a lot of people in the money making space sometimes forget because it's not often actually used against them because of a globally fairly relaxed attitude to business regulation, is the power of the state. Like sink all the money into Nauru you want but Australia and the US are the two nations actually making the decisions in the region because they have the navies in the area. And if they don't want you to be running Nauru you won't be running Nauru. And it's the same for other effective altruism stuff, long-term investments work only so long as the states in the region you are building them permit them to exist.

@scottkirby5016

11 ай бұрын

oh I think they get that, that is why they gave so much money to political causes/figures.

Cas Coin is a light shining in darkness. Inspiring!

I hope Cas feels better. Those are legit things to be bummed out about & I'm sorry Cas was given reason to feel ruffled. Did a great show, regardless, as usual. I hope doing this empowering, smart, ethical, thoughtful show with your pal + colleague Bennett was restorative. Your work is restorative for me, so I want it to be for yourselves/your channel, too. This was such a fantastic episode. Thank you Cas + Bennett.

Excellent discussion, especially the argument about infinity, which also affects religious discussions.

It is hard to overstate just how far Nauru has fallen. For a time they were the wealthiest nation per capita in the world. It was called the Kuwait of the Pacific and the wild stories we hear today of "some oil sheik" buying or partying in some insane fashion applied to them just as much. Their sovereign wealth fund they had was both massive and shockingly poorly run on a scale that wouldn't be matched until 1MDB. Their dead economy really has opened them up to being willing to act as other people's dirty job home be it the banking fraud schemes of the 2000's or the detention sites for hire of today. So the thought of what they wanted to do with the island of setting up a lab for human enhancement and writing the regulation thereof seems particularly dark when combined with the EA philosophy. Sounds rather James Bond villain in just how crazy it is.

@picahudsoniaunflocked5426

11 ай бұрын

"Hello, I'd like to buy a lair...I mean, "island"..."

@scottkirby5016

11 ай бұрын

@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 take a group that believes people should not be morally judged for their actions because free will doesn't exist and they are only the product of their environment (go ahead and read SBF's mothers 2013 ethics works...they are spooky) add the idea that future benefit can just justify whatever negative now because "future benefit" is defined by whatever we want it to be (reminds me of Enron's mark to market philosophy) is just asking for some weird Ubermench/star trek augments type result. and it will be good for us...we just don't understand, because they (the EA) are so smart....but first the lair.

Sweet shirt. Vonnegut was so great at writing about the absurdity of human nature. He might have appreciated your channel!

@RideReport

7 ай бұрын

Where’s the binance update!!!???

Great work on this video guys, I subbed when all the SBF drama was going on, your commentary on it has been great. I recommend watching a video by Jeffrey Kaplan titled "Peter Singer, ordinary people are evil". The video does a really good job going over Singer's argument in "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" which I think seriously complicates the implications of the effective altruist arguments.

Nice job!, you voiced most of my complains with utilitarianism and so far I hadn't found any other person to point them out.

I would argue that the two existential threats that it might be worth disregarding the problems in the here and now are Anthropogentric Climate Change and Asteroid/Comet impacts. The former there is a lot of work be done on it and it is helping people now. The latter you could do 90% of the work a private individual can do for under a billion dollars. If you build a space telescope to spot the would be Earth impactor and get it into space once the impactor is found it is likely that governments will be able to work to solve the rest of the problem. Five years and about $1 billion would go a long way to ensuring that humanity isn't forcibly removed from Earth, unless we are the ones to do it.

What are the existential risks associated with CasCoin funds being appropriated for "weird cult sh*t"? Great episode, I agree that folks like MacAskill need to take accountability for how their movement was involved in FTX's fraud.

@CryptoCriticPod

11 ай бұрын

The appropriation of CasCoin prevents existential risks

The arrogance and hubris of these wealth "movements" is astounding.

Small Nation Fact check: Australia was Nauru's Protectorate nation before the guano mines were exploited. Naurubtue independent nation became incredibly wealthy but lost it to an independent investment swindler. Currently the nation is subsidized and financed into the billions annually by Australia.

@toomanyaccounts

8 ай бұрын

the island wasted its wealth on luxury goods such as sports cars that they were too fat to get into as well as get rich schemes.

Sorry for commenting so much, but this was a fantastic episode, so badly needed. Thank you. Also whoa there was a real bifurcation by the Mondo/Whole Earth Catalogue types, ethically speaking.

@CryptoCriticPod

11 ай бұрын

Commenting is good for the algorithm!

Many philosophies of life, and I include theist religions have been used to justify reprehensible behaviors'. EA really is the latest. Stoicism is also a favourite of the tech industry leadership as well and they view material wealth as a 'preferred indifferent'. The challenge for any philosophy is how the accumulation of wealth affects the ethics of your decisions. Humans seem to be able to rationalize many courses of action. I am not sure that if SBF was not a proponent of EA that this situation would have turned out any different.

B's definition of EA would make a great Short imho.

Wonder what good he calculated that justified the terrible misery inflicted upon customers by stealing 8 billion dollars? SBF in prison forever definitely serves the greater good. So, I suppose I may believe in effective altruism just a little bit

EA equals Charity ? Like the FBX advert they are re inventing the wheel .

Invested in $CAS coin and lost my life savings. Thanks bois.

@CryptoCriticPod

10 ай бұрын

It’s not a loss yet, it’s a time-limited potential gain

Effective altruism is colonialism cosplay for billionaires

How about pay people a fair living wage. I'm thinking of you Amazon

@toomanyaccounts

8 ай бұрын

learn the origin of min wage and why it creates inflation that means it kills jobs, small businesses and means the wage becomes far less in value meaning that you were better off before the increase

So SBF can practice EA in prison .

Shame you dont have 2 million listenees. People listen to assholes way to much, maybe if you had some lambos and ferraris and a villa with a shooting tange you could reach more people……

??? Theorising about conspiracies is ok when we do it

"They become so focused on their pet issues they lose the ability to actually assess other things" Guess it should be called, Effective Autism 😄- Would also explain why they (have to) limit themselves to Utilitarianism 😆

Effective altruism is code for Political Influence for these grifters

Does Cas not live in California? How he so white? 😄

Wtf? How is FTX still a thing?

@willschryver

11 ай бұрын

It's literally not lol

@scottkirby5016

11 ай бұрын

because bankruptcy takes years to process in large complex corporate cases. This is stuff they are finding as they rip the corpse of FTX apart...it came from the suit by those in charge of the bankruptcy suing SBF to get him to give the money he gave himself (billion dollar unsecured IOU 1% interest no payment until 2026 type stuff) from the company back to the company so they can (minus generous management fees) distribute it to those who FTX owed money at the time of its collapse.

@jmitterii2

10 ай бұрын

How is fake money for real money still a thing? Give all your real money for my fake money... so I can pay my rent! LOL!

Whats up with your voice?

Admittedly, I'm only 5 or so minutes in and definitely commenting prematurely, but I'm kind of disappointed at the framing given with that definition of EA. The core of EA is the idea that idea that you should try to figure out how to do the most good with what you have to give. That "biggest impact for your dollar" thing that Bennett mentioned at the beginning of his description really is it. Focusing so heavily on the fringe ideas some very online people involved in the movement have for how to achieve that biggest impact for their dollar seems like a bad way to describe EA as a whole. Existential threats or long-termism aren't what most people who are into EA spend their charity dollars on or time worrying about. It's just one annoying strand of a broad idea. Why are the examples given for EA orgs like Lifeboat when long-termism (and the poor accounting for uncertainty that goes into it) isn't representative of EA? edit: further in, it's looking up. Bennett brought up Peter Singer too. edit 2: @18:05 this has gone off the deep end and pretty far from the topic of effective altruism. After finishing it, I don't think this episode is about effective altruism as much as it is about fringe stuff that people online bash EA for that isn't actually EA. Giving money to blow up space asteroids instead of donating to a cancer charity is the complete opposite of effective altruism.

@CryptoCriticPod

10 ай бұрын

If these things aren’t EA then why are people who believe them commonly associated with well-funded EA organizations?

@CryptoCriticPod

10 ай бұрын

Like once you’re hanging out with MacAskill, funding CEA, buying and donating real estate to other EAs, I don’t think you’re on the fringes.

@goodpants1812

10 ай бұрын

​ @CryptoCriticPod Believing in something weird or creepy and being "commonly associated" with a philosophy doesn't mean your weird thing represents that philosophy - especially when it seems to contradict the aims of the philosophy. That's not how it works. Describing Catholicism to someone by referring to the child abuse scandals would still be providing a pretty bad faith description of the faith despite the high stature of some of the perpetrators in the organization, no?

@goodpants1812

10 ай бұрын

MacAskill is a big figure promoting EA, but he isn't the movement. You even mentioned in the podcast one of the names who I think has had more influence and has more useful things to say on the topic: Peter Singer. I get that if you're spending your time focused on SBF, this would be the easy perspective to take, but if counting the degrees of separation from crypto scammers on the internet is where you're coming to get your understanding of a subject then you're skewing your perspective on the subject.