Swifties and Effective Altruists
Probably not what you want to be reading during your Christmas...
largely a reaction to reading this post and this article in the same day, and conversations I have had with others. Was written the week leading up to Thanksgiving originally, before Taylor Swift actually became person of the year. Happy Holidays from my grandparents place in India!
These past few months, I have been accused of belonging to two legendary tribes whose actions shake the world and dominate media coverage.
I speak, of course, of Swifties and Effective Altruists. In the past I have given lukewarm answers to the question of whether I belonged to these two groups. Even worse, the answer differed depending on who was asking. Like the duplicitous dog that I am, I gave a politician's answer, responding to the swiftie skepticals with a "I like some of her music" and the diehards with "I know most of her songs and [Lover/1989] is my favorite album."
Worst yet, I have not disclosed my financial contributions. I gave $19.89 for tickets to the eras movie, and a tenth of my grad student income last year to GiveWell. I would like to express my deep shame at these purchases.
We all know that Taylor Swift is the subsequent coming of god, regardless of your religion. Sure, she's a shoe-in for the Time Person of the Year, but she's so much more than that. She is a bringer of (economic) miracles. She is invoked when denouncing your enemies. And like any god, she can bring calamity when crossed1. And yet, I only tithed this god a fraction of a fraction of a $20 bill, passed through the grubby hands of the theater, the movie company, and the countless people not named Taylor Swift who crafted the theatrical and religious experience that was the eras tour movie.
I had the chance to buy tickets to the real concert, to take a pilgrimage necessary to be a true devotee. But I must admit to being insufficiently swiftie. I could give excuses. I don't enjoy massive concerts as much as many do. I am expecting to pay a lot for dental work over the next year, and am traveling to India to see my ailing grandparents. But these are paltry excuses in the face of divine light. Why?
I wasted enough money to give the average American Family good seats to a Taylor Swift concert. I wasted it on Effective Altruism. The shell game and known ideology of such horrible people as Sam Bankman-Fried.
Money that could have enriched TicketMaster, hardworking Americans, and the golden god herself instead went to helping poor residents of Sub Saharan Africa with malaria. I don't know how I live with myself.
First, some statements: I disagree with almost all core tenets of 'longtermist AI' thought, do not actually think at all about determining subjective well being of shrimp2, and seeing the words Elizier Yudowski on top of a tweet triggers a subconscious nervous response that tees up rage chemicals for whatever inanity I am about to read. I'm still a strong maybe on whether I consider myself an effective altruist, because I generally am not a movement kind of guy.
In other words, I disagree with the two most publicized beliefs held by Effective Altruists and strongly dislike their (second, now) most famous member. In the public understanding, this would be like a leftist who didn't believe in climate change or unions and hated Bernie Sanders.
Despite this, I personally think that the EA sphere's focus on malaria prevention, blindness, bioterrorism risks, and the rest has been astonishingly good. There is a huge difference between the rigor of analysis done by a site like Charity Navigator for charities and something like GiveWell. One automatically looks at a few surface level metrics and flags when charities are embezzling funds to throw lavish retreats or the equivalent. The other gets in the weeds and figures out exactly how far your dollar goes to do the thing you want it to do. It is the difference between a high school physics class and a graduate level one. To be clear, I don't think that GiveWell is a complete solution to philanthropy: it is ill suited to determining where to donate during humanitarian crisis, and does little to address structural problems. However not everything has to solve every problem, and for the problem it aims to solve (maximizing lives saved per dollar) it is by far the best solution of the ones I am aware of. I dearly wish there was an organization like Givewell in the climate sphere, so that I could make a meaningful decision about whether Wren or Gold standard is a more effective way to offset my carbon emissions.
Instinctually, why would I not want to be considered a part of this movement? I agree on the core tenets, financially contribute to it more than anything else save myself, and read and respect many members of the movement. The reason is, of course, that 'effective altruists,', like members of most movements, have a bad reputation.
Movements which touch on moral responsibility inevitably attract morally righteous people who fight about the most contentious ideas in the movement. They are then inevitably characterized by those people. Vegans are characterized by PETA, and EAs by the longtermist AI twitter posters. In both cases, the people inside the movement often understand why those people feel the way they do, even if they don't agree with them. But from the outside view, these people are the worst combination of traits: annoying and morally righteous with good arguments to back it up.
Swifties are much the same, but instead of liking a movement that has donated hundred of millions of dollars to charity they are righteous about their very unique enjoyment of the most streamed artist on spotify. I think taylor swift's music manages to do the impressive feat of straddling catchy and meaningful while crossing a huge number of styles and genres, but none of her songs would make any of my top ten lists. Yet the same media that drags on EAs constantly for being annoying and self righteous has only praise for Swifties.
I'm still unsure on whether I qualify as a Swiftie or an EA. I did read a tasteful number of articles about Travis Kelce, and rewatched the SNL episode where he came on. But it utterly blows my mind that of the two I personally would feel more shame at belonging to a movement whose primary purpose is to cheaply end suffering than one whose primary purpose is to obsess over the world's most popular artist.
Scott Alexander has a longer list of positive things accomplished by Effective Altruism, which in my head cannon is a response to this post by Freddie DeBoer. The two of them differ significantly in what types of people in the movement they interact with, and as a result of that (and their own opinions) come to very different conclusions about the movement itself. Scott Alexander is an insider. He interacts with the movers and shakers, true believers who are trying to change the world for the better. When he sees failure, he sees the people behind their failure, and their impacts. He sees the good that the movement does, and believes it outweighs the bad. Freddie DeBoer is an internet personality. He primarily interacts with people online who talk more than act, and media coverage about the movement. He will never interact with the movers and shakers who make change because they have little reason to interact with him.
Note that the above statements generalize to pretty much any movement. With that being said, how does one judge the quality of a movement fairly from the inside or out? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and have settled on the following:
The positive actions that the movement has done, according to itself and others
The negative actions of the movement, according to itself and others.
Its most supported figures. If there exist no generally supported figures in the movement, it will probably dissolve into infighting
How pleasant followers of the movement are to interact with
These metrics will obviously still be biased. But at least this gives an actual thing to disagree on than whether the movement itself, this shambling monstrosity of people, is in its entirety good or bad.
As an example, lets look at Swifties.
Positive: Swift has a released a lot of good music. While her fans have not accomplished anything of note, I think to some degree Swift has redefined what it meant to be a pop star, both in terms of her relationship to her record label, her fans, and the press. She is the queen of poptimism3, unassailable on her throne. Her fans do a lot of crazy things, but they mostly keep it to themselves.
Negative: People putting liking Taylor swift on their dating profiles next to asking for a Jim to their Pam, as if either indicates a personality. 4
Leaders: Swift seems like a generally good person who knows how to bring joy to her fans and chooses to do so nine times out of ten.
She's the most popular artist on Spotify. You interact with her followers on a daily basis. I might as well ask your opinion on women under 40.
I refuse to do the same for EA. Think for yourself and come to your own conclusions.5
Done? Let's think more of one of the oft cited negatives of the movement: the amount of focus it puts on AI safety research.
Now focus on the subset of the movement that funds AI safety research. You might think that it is and was a fine thing to spend money on, that research by its nature involves funding a lot of dud ideas, and that hindsight is twenty twenty. You might think that the grantmaking process was so insular as to effectively eliminate the possibility of effective use. You might think that existential risk for AI is obviously bogus, or that safety can only be achieved by political action.
I want you take a second, form an opinion, and justify it. Use your reasoning skills. Invoke some argument for why it was good/acceptable/bad. I'm not a rationalist, and truly do not care about your logic. I'm going to continue rambling until you pause consuming the digital dog food on the screen in front of you and come to an opinion, any opinion, fully formed on the value of spending on AI safety and what that means for what we should think of the effective altruist movement.
The largest spender on AI safety in the EA sphere is/was Open Philanthropy by a country mile. They invested in OpenAI in 2017, earning them a board seat and a place in last week's the leadership fiasco of November 2023. While that investment succeeded in the traditional sense, its impact on safety is debatable while its impact on AI development and investment is not.They've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the cause, mostly in grants that costed millions of dollars and have not had any impact.
In 2021 alone, GiveWell donated half a billion dollars towards high impact charities. OpenPhilanthropy, the largest donator to the AI safety effort, has given 330 million to that particular cause in over a decade. The Eras Tour shows has grossed 4.1 billion according to the Economic times, a subsidiary of the times of India. Ignore the fact that even the Times of India's economics division reports regularly6 on Taylor Swift, and focus on that number. This number does not count streaming revenue, revenue from the Eras Tour movie (which was actually a fun experience), and the value of the Kelce jerseys purchased in the past three months. When Taylor Swift, the largest pop star alive, earns four billion dollars, we congratulate her for stimulating the local economy. When a bunch of crazy SF techbros spend a billionaire's cash on a slew of charities, we get furious that they spend a third of a billion on AI risk because we think it stupid. We use it to argue against a movement which spends several times that amount on giving to the most rigorously vetted charities for saving lives on the planet.
More disclaimers, because this is my first time publishing writing which may be controversial and I have a deep fear of the Swifties. I'm not a utilitarian. Should any of my close family truly need the money, I would stop donating to Givewell in a heartbeat. I think that it is more than reasonable to not give your time and money until you have achieved your own happiness and long term financial security. Finally, the Eras tour was truly worth thousands of dollars to some people.
That being said, I disagree with the core thesis of DeBoer's takedowns of effective altruism, that everyone who tries to do good tries to do as much good as they can, and that thus the core philosophical argument of effective altruism is trivial. Forget the utilitarian arguments for what the most good is. Trying to do as much good as you can is a bar that can never be reached, an endless and thankless task.
Fewer people are donating now than they did in the past, and we give to people like us. According to this article, the largest recipients of donations in America are religious institutions and four year colleges and universities. Do the givers to these causes not want to do good, or do they think that the most good they could do is by donating to the local church or their alma matter? Neither, of course. They just don't want to create a metric for how much good they are doing and measure it. They want to do good by ensuring that the institutions they are part of remain strong into the future, so that the institutions can help other people like they helped the givers.
This isn't an endorsement of one method or the other. I've donated $10 to Berkeley CSM during Berkeley's Big Give, and donate a good chunk of change to climate charities that don't meaningfully save lives. I do think, however, that we as a society are quick to denounce anything which even claims to have the moral high ground over us. By virtue of movements being associated with people, popular movements that aim to do good can and will be associated with terrible people7, making denunciation easy. But we chose what we gain from these movements: whether we try to use them to make ourselves and the world better, or to feel better about ourselves.
At the end of the day, I think I am for all intents and purposes a Swiftie. I did go to the eras tour movie after all ;).
look upon the sheer amount of coverage there was of Jake Gyllenhaal over the All Too Well 10 minute version and despair, oh enemies of the holy Swift.
I think that the simple and easy solution is to not eat them, and that with animal welfare decreased consumption is always better than ethical consumption.
Any other style of music criticism other than poptimism has been dead for a decade. A quote from this 2014 article : should gainfully employed adults whose job is to listen to music thoughtfully really agree so regularly with the taste of 13-year-olds?
Its been nice knowing you all, I can hear them coming for me. I must admit that during a weak moment two years ago I briefly put "Agree or Disagree: Lover is the best t swift album." in my profile. I bathed in the validation for a few weeks before returning to an actually interesting conversation starter.
I put Scott Alexander as my movement leader at the moment. Nothing is more common among EAs than disliking Elizier Yudowsky and SBF.
If someone could explain to me the absolutely insane amount of reporting here please do.
Paul Elrich is a noted environmentalist, a Stanford Professor, and President of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. He advocated mass involuntary sterilization of Indians and was successful.