Effective Altruism keeps focus despite advocate’s arrest
Effective Altruism seeks to help people figure out the best ways to use their money and time to do measurable good and address the world’s biggest problems.
Despite the recent highprofile arrest of one of its most famous proponents, the movement’s spirit showed no sign of flagging Saturday when dozens of its adherents got together in San Francisco to catch up on how all their dogood efforts are going.
The burgeoning philanthropy movement drew several dozen 20- and 30somethings to a casual picnic under sunny skies in Mission Dolores Park, and their enthusiasm was contagious. They ranged from people so inspired by the philosophy that they had upended their entire lives, to ones who had made incremental changes, to ones simply seeking to learn more.
For most of them, the downfall of crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried — a big proponent of and donor to Effective Altruism who claimed that his billions would go toward “saving people” — barely registered. Charged with committing massive fraud through cryptocurrency exchange FTX, BankmanFried is under house arrest at the Palo Alto home of his parents, both Stanford law professors.
“It would be a shame if one bad player hurt the movement,” said Mollie Pettit, who’s been drawn to the idea since 2017 and follows its “giving what we can” maxim to donate 10% of her salary to charities judged effective by groups such as GiveWell. “Effective Altruism is about reducing suffering in the world, which is undeniably a good thing to work towards.”
Adam Crompton hadn’t even known of the Bankman-Fried connection, but Effective Altruism had been so influential in his life that it barely registered.
Crompton discovered the movement six or seven years ago when he was feeling that his career in cybersecurity and privacy wasn’t doing anything to help the world. The concepts and philosophy so galvanized him that he quit his job and spent months in Puerto Rico, volunteering to help people in the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
He then spent years living and volunteering in Europe, the Caribbean and South America. He does freelance cybersecurity consulting to pay the bills, but also does pro bono coaching for people who feel lost in their lives and careers. And he and his partner use GiveWell and other Effective Altruism principles to choose where to give money, he said.
“I’d always wanted to make the world a better place, but the world is so big and there are so many options,” he said. “The concepts and community in E.A. showed me I’m not alone; maybe I could take a different path.”
Other people at the picnic had taken steps that were more modest. Watson Ladd said he signed up to participate in clinical trials of an HIV vaccine. “If it works, millions of people around the world wouldn’t die,” he said. “For me, It’s just a small inconvenience.”
Ruth Grace Wong discovered the concept through the book “Doing Good Better” by William MacAskill, a philosophy professor considered one of E.A.’s originators. She had just moved to the Bay Area for her first tech job. She originally connected with the local community on Facebook.
“We have energy to work on difficult things together,” she said. “It’s rare to meet people who are technologists and also optimists.”
As a full-time tech worker and the mom of two toddlers with a baby on the way, her time is limited. Still, she’s working to pursue a master’s in public health to prepare herself for a possible future career shift addressing largescale problems. Meanwhile, she makes recurring donations to groups such as the Against Malaria Foundation.
Allison Agnello moved to the Bay Area a month ago from Florida, where she co-founded the Miami E.A. group. She was already stepping up to organize San Francisco events.
The E.A. movement helped her crystallize a job change, she said. She was working at a nonprofit that helped companion animals when she began questioning whether it would be better to address other types of animals. She came across the concepts of E.A., which seemed like ”a movement that coincided with my values,” she said. “I realized my career could be used for something that does more good than helping cats and dogs.”
She ended up switching to work at a nonprofit that seeks to help factoryfarmed animals.
Her reaction to the Bankman-Fried situation: “If his actions involved lying, deceiving and stealing money, that all goes against the principles of E.A. Everyone here has the best intentions.”
Her words echoed those of some prominent names in E.A. who took to Twitter in recent weeks to denounce Bankman-Fried and deplore his connections to the movement.
Bankman-Fried could not be reached for comment.
“If those involved deceived others and engaged in fraud (whether illegal or not) that may cost many thousands of people their savings, they entirely abandoned the principles of the effective altruism community,” tweeted MacAskill, the professor who helped originate E.A. — and also the person who recruited Bankman-Fried to the idea.
A decade ago, when Bankman-Fried was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology undergraduate considering working on animal activism, MacAskill suggested he could do more good if he made a lot of money and gave it away, according to the New York Times.
”The Effective Altruism community will need to have a strong response/ crucible moment,” about Bankman-Fried, tweeted Dustin Moskovitz, another tech billionaire who’s a big E.A. proponent.
Moskovitz, the cofounder of Facebook and Asana, did some of that soul-searching online.
He tweeted: “Either EA encouraged Sam’s unethical behavior, or provided a convenient rationalization for such actions. Either is bad.”