[rich_sasha]

So there are some assholes doing EA. Maybe even it's a majority. Maybe even the organisations that front it are all "look how amazing we are".

Is EA actually... bad? It would seem at worst it's not as good as advertised.

If 10% of the followers donate 10% of their income to charity, isn't that a massive win?

I'm not part of EA myself, like many I'm mildly annoyed by the arrogance but also feel like that's not enough to substantially criticise a movement.

[raydiatian]

> Is EA actually bad

It’s the “do well while doing good” philosophy that underlies EA, that is quietly grinning in the shadows eyes glowing sick with greed. Doing well while doing good means turning a profit (or gaining/maintaining power, after the fact) by fixing important problems. The issue here is that you’ve got a principal-agent problem. Jeff Bezos has $150B, says he’ll give it all away in his lifetime. But he’s not going to give it away. He is going to invest it. You’ve got the Bezos Earth Fund which is looking to bootstrap solutions to climate change. The end result of just one winner? Bezos interest group has a huge foot on the thing that controls climate change. This is a lever, for them to pull as necessary. The same way Twitter is a lever for Must.

EA is fine, but the problem is that in America “the best of us are by definition the richest” and so it’s pretty hard to engineer a situation where the rich don’t get richer much less agree to concede power to the next party.

[rich_sasha]

As I read your excellent comment, I'm trying to find the bit where the world would be better off if Bezos wasn't a part of EA and I'm not sure I can.

Without EA he might still have some BS foundation like many before (I'm not actually taking a stance on his work, I have no idea about it). He might use one to push his weight around and have an outsized influence.

Maybe without the label of EA there would be more pressure to justify the scope and impact of charitable work? I'm not sure.

[raydiatian]

> your excellent comment

Are you being snarky? I genuinely can’t tell, sorry if you aren’t.

> trying to find the bit where the world would be better off if..

You’re right. I don’t genuinely know. I get the feeling more and more each day that our system is hardcore stupid broken.

My gut feeling is that the existence of Bezos and EA are, on the whole, part and parcel. Bezos is the product of a system that warps mankind around working to build empires for the few that win the Pareto distribution game. EA feels like the latest contemporary whitewash used to protect it.

Maybe I’m just a loser and I deserved to be fucked over at the grocery store and the doctors office for existing but not having more to give to my employer. I just wish my perception would catch up to reality.