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Dylan Matthews:You talk about existential risks in your latest book — big threats that have a chance of wiping out all of humanity. Which of those, if you had to pick one or two, concerns you the most? Is there one where the story of how a disaster would unfold is particularly compelling?
Peter Singer: It's not just that the disaster story is more compelling, but that there is a reasonably compelling story as to how we can reduce that risk. When it comes to collision with an asteroid, there is a reasonable story about how we could reduce that risk. First we need to discover whether asteroids are on a collision path, and NASA is already doing that, and then we would need to think about how we could deflect it from Earth. So that, I can kind of understand.
Some of the others, it's hard to know exactly what we could do. Bioterrorism, I guess we can develop ways of making things more secure and making it harder for bioterrorists. But it's not going to be easy to find exactly what the best strategy is. Things like the singularity — the takeover by artificial intelligence, or something like that — it's very hard to see exactly, at this stage, anyway, what you could do that would reduce that risk. I don't know.
Hi folks,
George Monbiot – an effective altruist in spirit – just wrote a passionate attack on idealists entering 'soulless' industries like finance ^.
He completely fails to consider the financial discrepancy argument, and dismisses outright the argument from replaceability (reform-from-inside, with an EA financier yielding at least one unit of reform from inside).
I think rebutting this article would be a very good opportunity for promoting e2g. Would anyone be willing and able to get something onto Practical Ethics or the 80,000 Hours blog?
(I'd do it myself, but don't think my name would carry any weight. Is this Forum well-established enough to transfer gravitas onto its writers?)
What makes you say that? Could someone pitch effective altruism to him? He's a UK author, right?
His unusual concern for the balance of evidence (e.g. pro-nuclear environmentalism), his animal welfarism, environmental x-risk, and his transparency about his interests. Some examples:
Good idea to pitch directly. I'll draft something to send to him.
As someone who really admired George Monbiot as a teenager, I'm slightly surprised to hear him described as an effective altruist in spirit.
I admire his transparency and his willingness to change his mind, but he does strike me as someone quite committed to an ideology (generally a progressive one not too far from my own!) around issues like state intervention and ownership/delivery of public services. I'm also not convinced that rewilding is a promising or cost effective way of tackling the environmental issues which he (quite possibly rightly) prioritises so much. I'm not saying I don't think he is a good person, but I am saying it seems a stretch to think of him as an effective altruist in spirit. Do you know him personally?
I actually think the argument in his piece is pretty good as someone who works in one of the industries he is upset about. I can think of several friends, none of whom would consider themselves effective altruists, who have indeed followed the sort of path he outlines. All too often, people do not make differences from the inside.
I take your point that there are counterexamples where people do good from inside (I would hope to consider myself here, as someone donating 15%+ and triggering donations from colleagues worth around twice that last year) but as a general phenomenon his piece is pretty sound. A rebuttal would be difficult, but a response could go along the lines of "Not all City workers" or similar. Do you think this would still be valuable?
Yes, I agree. 'Effective altruist' appears to me to be a label picking out a very particular and narrow movement and group of people, despite the broadness of the words we happen to have adopted as a label.