The Crazy Train

Postscript No. 5 | Matthew Adelstein, Noah Birnbaum, and Amos Wollen on effective altruism

THE NEW CRITIC
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POSTSCRIPT

Untitled, Kit Knuppel

*What follows is a conversation between Matthew Adelstein, Noah Birnbuam, Amos Wollen, and Elan Kluger, founding editor of The New Critic. Matthew is a 22-year-old undergraduate studying Philosophy at the University of Michigan; he writes the blog Bentham’s Bulldog. Noah is a 21-year-old Philosophy undergraduate at the University of Chicago who co-runs UChicago Effective Altruism and writes at the blog Irrational Community. Amos is a 21-year-old postgrad student at Oxford; he blogs at Going Awol. And Elan is a 22-year-old writer from Michigan studying History at Dartmouth College.

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This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.*

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*I am not an effective altruist. Effective altruism is defined below as a “movement that’s just broadly trying to do good, as effectively as you possibly can,” a movement which thinks of altruism as a question of calculations. Matthew Adelstein, author of the prominent blog Bentham’s Bulldog calls EA, “the purest form of altruism,” as it is interested in what is maximally effective in saving lives and reducing harm, not in the kind of altruism that makes you feel good about yourself.

I am not an effective altruist but I admire the movement greatly. I meet people across religions — Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Muslims — and rarely do I feel affronted or moved by their moral seriousness. Those religions require a tithe — giving away a certain percentage of their annual income — but few do so. They have elegant rhetoric and beautiful buildings but their actions rarely match up.

The same is not true of EA. While few admire their rhetoric — calculations of efficiency are less than elegant — and they do not have many buildings to speak of, members of EA do what they say they will do: they give away their money. They spend a great deal of time thinking about how they will give away their money and then they do. I admire them for that.

EA is one of the defining philosophical movements of our age and one of the rare movements that gathers intelligent, uncynical people together. It is small, but growing, and has chapters sprinkled at most major universities. In London, I found myself at an EA adjacent party, with free alcohol (great) and many, many young people — alas, mostly men. But I was and remain curious about this movement and am trying to learn as much as I can. I am still collecting notes.

Three EA friends and acquaintances help me along the path in my exploration. I hope you enjoy our conversation.*

ELAN KLUGER You would define yourselves as effective altruists, is that correct? What does that mean?

NOAH BIRNBAUM Yeah, I think I would. I would define effective altruism as part of this movement that’s just broadly trying to do good, as effectively as you possibly can. It’s kind of intuitive based on the name. And I just try to take ideas seriously and be like, oh, wow, I see an opportunity to do lots and lots of good, and this is in some ways better than a lot of the other ways that people are doing good. So I will do that.

AMOS WOLLEN I’d describe myself as an effective altruist or less than that — just EA aligned — in the sense that I believe in the kind of philosophy Noah just sketched where you’re trying to do the most good you can, or at least do better with fewer resources, and to try and get things done more efficiently in the best way possible. That said, because I’m a student, I can only afford small recurring donations to animal welfare charities. I’m looking for a job that’s broadly in the space, but those are hard to come by.

KLUGER How did you first hear of effective altruism?

BIRNBAUM I first heard of effective altruism when I was on my gap year, and I was reading a lot, and I was reading a bunch of random subjects, but I was also reading a particularly large amount of philosophy. And I thought, wow, this consequentialist type reasoning seems really good. But it’s kind of unfortunate that nobody actually takes philosophy very seriously. People are kind of like, oh yes, I have this or that belief, but nobody actually acts on these beliefs. Very weird. And then I found that there was a group that was doing both of these things. They were taking consequentialist reasoning seriously and they tried to take general philosophy seriously. So if someone makes a critique, they will actually change how they live in certain ways. The main people that I was hearing about at this point were Sam Harris and I got interested in Tyler Cowen, who also started writing about effective altruism then. I sort of just slid down the sort of path, I just read a shit ton of articles myself. And I was like, oh yeah, this is pretty convincing. I should take this pretty seriously with respect to what I’m going to do in college or how I should think about, I don’t know, my career and stuff.

KLUGER You were on a gap year at a Yeshiva, right?

BIRNBAUM Yes.

KLUGER Did that play into it? Yeshiva as a kind of ethical community, theoretically, and then being disappointed?