David Thorstad (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford) draws my attention to his new blog, "Ineffective altruism", which advances doubts about effective altruism and longtermism.
As someone who shares many of these concerns (and more), I welcome the turning of a more critical eye toward these movements. To be clear, I very much support altruism and long-term moral thinking. I just happen to think that the prudent way to do the most good in the long-term is to treat people fairly here and now, and that this involves not concentrating wealth in the hands of supposed altruists to distribute (since this is all too likely to happen).
Instead, doing the most good that we can, or so I think, involves reforming the domestic, international, and the global socio-economic-political domains in fair ways so that all people enjoy similar rights, opportunities, and a fair division of wealth, so that we can work together (fairly!) to combat existential risks and not dominate, exploit, or (yes, rip off) each other.
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