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I got swept up in EA back in I think 2008 and was doing the reading to participate. What got me out is when I met with other people in the Seattle area and discovered nobody was invested in finding the ways to provide the most impact per dollar but to just pool their money into a "trusted" org

I’m confused—this piece cuts against the GiveWell bednets approach entirely, which the other pieces talk about as the only remaining piece of EA that still serves its original purpose. Is there any room for charity evaluation, or should all philanthropic organizations be run by their beneficiaries?

Right right this was the article I was referencing that said GiveWell is the last bastion of those 2010-era EA ideals. Kalulu argues that that is worse than traditional philanthropy!

Like what does it actually mean to put the “world’s ultra poor directly at the helm”? Do you go household by household? Town by town? Do people vote? Do you need to perform a census? Do you form a pseudogovernment? Do you specialize, or is every project bespoke?

Do you just give everyone cash?GiveDirectly, another EA offshoot, has been evaluated by GiveWell. It definitely puts households at the helm! It’s not top rated (buying chlorine tablets with money is less likely than taking free ones dependent on having them available) but it’s rated well!

Kalulu’s criticism of the GiveWell approach is that these interventions are short term and disposable compared to grassroots initiatives that stay rooted in a community. I get it, but is the idea that the lives saved by bednets or vitamin A supplements don’t also benefit a community over time?

It helps to look at EA as a tool for rationalizing really awful and largely racist activities rather than as the strategy for maximizing the impact of philanthropy that it pretends to be

Fantastic read, thanks. I always *wanted* to like EA, having had similar-ish thoughts at least since 2001 (and also being emotionally challenged by being an engineer). But every time I looked, there was more suspicious weirdness going on. Hope someone resurrects the good parts!

definitely - was never deeply involved in EA, but in the early 2010s was friends with a bunch of the early GWWC crowd, and while it wasn't above criticism a lot of sincerely well-intentioned people were trying to do something good...and then you look back five, ten years later and, weird cult.

Which is weird because if you take the concept seriously spending charitable donations on improving the lives of the global poor would seem to be by far the most effective charitable intervention you could make.