[Karrot_Kream]

Any time humans get together to solve a problem, band together to form a charity, coordinate over a social network to send out PPE, etc, they are not simply allocating optimally at the margins, they are aggregating resources and spending them toward a directed goal more efficiently. These are all examples of altruism. If you narrowly scope altruism to "marginal donation optimization", then yes, effective altruism is indeed a fairly trivially optimal way to allocate these resources.

[smitty1e]

I accept that your definition is a common one, but one of two attributes strike me as crucial for an unambiguously pure altruism:

- total anonymity, or

- ultimate sacrifice, as in the mother or warrior who lays it down for another.

Anything less is open to the usual questions of motive.

As with Dada, altruism doesn't survive intellectual evaluation.

[Karrot_Kream]

> As with Dada, altruism doesn't survive intellectual evaluation.

Sure and I'm not as interested in discussing the philosophical ideal of altruism. My interest in charitable work, as I suspect many interested in EA feel, stems from trying to do the greatest good with my limited allocation of resources, be that money, time, knowledge, manual labor, or otherwise. In that regard I'm unconcerned about the usual moral philosophical questions about motive and goodness.

[smitty1e]

Sounds fine, practical and worthwhile, if not, well, you know...

[watwut]

Neither of these requirements make sense. First, with activism, being known pretty often costs you. And with second, you are not altruistic if you dont die?

(Plus, people who helped the right cause and did not died have done more good then those who died for bad cause. Ultimate sacrifice for something bad does not make you better.)

> Anything less is open to the usual questions of motive.

But then the focus is on "if someone theoretically learned about me existing, do I leave a space for that person to attribute to me some intentions?" And the answer to that should be "who cares".