art is a waste of time; reducing suffering is all that matters

some art increases suffering

some things could do both! like junk food, maybe.

i love cheeseburgers but i am wracked by ethical guilt when i succumb to eating one. (though i guess the suffering of animals is being tabled for this discussion)

agree with the "anti-human" vibe I'm getting from this article. EA people quoted treat people as disposable machines who have an outside obligation to function at highest capacity to save other lives ... for what, for the lives saved to be disposable machines, too? cuz life without art, beauty, etc., would be pretty bland, there's probably a reason humans (and neanderthals!) got into this shit in the first place.

it seems like a weird combination of dehumanizing Anglo-American capitalism with "x lives saved" as profits returned. they don't even get into the classic problem of overpopulation ... the more lives you save, the more suffering you create in a world that can't handle everyone at once, particularly with climate change looking like it's irreversible. but these people don't seem to think that far! anyone who willingly devotes themselves to radicalism is going to have some screws loose, I guess.

Having EA explained to me by an adherent would increase my suffering.

I don't think bill gates is a disciple but I suspect his foundation operates on similar principles, which leads to things like nuclear advocacy, which I'm going to assume he's done the research and has seen it as the rational way forward but it just strikes me as the same kind of lack of imagination for something greater that results in shitty windows that makes me worry that we will see shitty but rational cost effective philanthropy dominating just by the sheer weight of his foundation

On the other hand it is really hard to argue against eradicating polio malaria etc

lol nerds

Here’s a simple test to determine if you’re creating art for yourself or for the world.

can i post my percentage on facebook

‘It’s hard to see how a vase or something would really impact culture in any one way, because what does it teach you about life?’

Isn't there a very famous poem about that?

lol consequentialists

i like that the liberal-capitalist ideal of the artist (teaching people that gays are good, encouraging the altruistic pursuit of money) is so close to the stalinist one (the engineer of the soul)

First, afaics nothing is going to stop people from creating art of some kind. We've been doing it since approximately 30,000 years ago. Suggesting that we stop this activity is like King Knut commanding the waves to turn back.

Second, the argument that the creation of art is squandering some vast amount of resources that could effectively be used to reduce suffering seems very poorly grounded. The resources required to create many forms of art, e.g a dance, a poem, a song, are effectively nil. You don't need anything but your own mind and body. The amounts of money paid for certain art objects applies to such a tiny range of artistic output it is ridiculous to equate this with "art" as a whole.

Third, the idea of diverting economic resources to altruistic uses is quite vague. Who would get these resources and how would they be used to reduce suffering in a community? The only model I can see for such resource use are NGOs such as Oxfam or Red Crescent. If an entire new apparatus is envisioned, I would like to know what it would be.

If NGOs are indeed the model, then it is a highly problematic model as the instrument to address human suffering as a whole.

Lastly, if we are going to stop one human endeavor and divert all its resources to combating suffering, I'd suggest stopping war and disbanding all national armed forces. Just the cessation of war would bring an instant reduction of suffering, without reference to spending military resources for anything else.

NB: If the EAs want to increase happiness, how would ridding the world of art accomplish that?

they apparatuses are named in the article, aimless. i think they are like oxfam etc. but with some modern datacentric junk thrown in to determine effectiveness etc.

i don't think they want to rid the world of art, there's plenty of it already, the question is how to spend your time from here on out given what else you could be doing

there's plenty of it already

this only applies to a consumerist model of art. the joy of making art can never be exhausted.

I vote for EA Sports because Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 has reduced suffering in my life

A wholly utilitarian critique of art was already developed under Marxism-Leninism. This seems to be animated by a similar spirit. I don't mind this sort of thinking when it is applied as the expression of a personal ethic. Where it seems out of joint is its implicit claim to a set of first principles that should be applied prescriptively to everyone everywhere. It seems much too spindly for that.

if this movement makes Chris Martin never want to sing again I say FULL STEAM AHEAD

i stand with the philosophio-religio-pessimists but have a growing respect for these hardline utilitarians. especially the ones worried about all the people in the future who might not get to live if skynet happens. (that was the previous Aeon article I read. What is this curious magazine?)

― woof

thanks for linking to that, awesome article

I'm sorry but 'value over replacement altruist' is one of the more disgustingly wrongheaded metrics I've come across in the whole rationalization-of-charitable-giving field

(probly doesn't help that I find sweeping prescriptions about charity vulgar to begin with)

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

‘I myself was extremely interested in evolutionary biology,’ Wiblin said, ‘and I would have liked to become an academic in that area. But I couldn’t really justify it on the effects that it has on helping other people, even though I found it fascinating.’

i remember arguing against baking pizza for a school fundraiser when we sucked at baking pizza, but I was overruled, so we baked some awful pizza and maybe made back the cost of ingredients in sales, and i do feel a lot of art does tend to fall in the category of baking sucky pizza, and our sucky pizza, if it was an art movement, was on the vanguard of suckism.

I have calculated that if all the moments annually spent picking one's nose were aggregated and monetized effectively by all 7 billion humans, with the proceeds redirected toward ending suffering, it could feed nearly 1.35 million people or vaccinate 3.62 million children. To say nothing whatsoever about masturbation.

I assume that 'effective altruists' also extend this principle to other areas of human activity: friends, relationships, children, etc. Having and raising a child in the First World is surely a far greater drain on time and resources than writing music or dancing.

xposts

i dunno, i find you can save a lot of time by being a really half-arsed parent

xpost to sund4r: yeah it seems like either their movement or this article has conflated "art" with "romantic individualism"

fwiw, I occasionally style myself a writer, and I am already quite capable of objecting to my own work on the grounds of its uselessness & fungibility thankyouverymuch

Like if there were broadly victimless, lowish risk insurance or tax frauds that would give you extra money to give to de-worming charities, would you be you morally obliged to do that?

Yeah, these jobs that generate lots of money which is then used for altruistic purposes: where is the money coming from? Are they really sure that large sums of money are being generated in this global economy without exploitation and suffering?

And in order for someone to become a successful, world-beating, big-money artist (whose life is then justified), don't they usually need to go through stages of being mediocre and struggling to improve, of cranking out failed drafts?

It would take a lot to convince me that someone who does not value art wd be at all effective at reducing human suffering

Yeah, these jobs that generate lots of money which is then used for altruistic purposes: where is the money coming from? Are they really sure that large sums of money are being generated in this global economy without exploitation and suffering?

"sure, the guys who build the roads I drive on to get to my lucrative programming job have kids whose clothing comes from a donation box; but it's okay because I'm living off Walmart canned goods and sending half my income to Africa!"

It is in the interests of becoming irreplaceable that a lot of EAs promote ‘earning to give’ – getting a well-paid job and donating carefully. If you score a lucrative programming job and then give away half your income, most of your competition probably wouldn’t have donated as much money. As far as the great universal calculation of utility is concerned, you have made yourself hard to replace. Artists, meanwhile, paint the beautiful landscape in front of them while the rest of the world burns.

as opiates for programmers go i guess this is better than thinking yr apps themselves are disrupting everyone in africa into happiness

funny tho that these guys think they have a lot of evangelizing to do to convince society that making money is a moral imperative and art is a waste of time. uphill work!

Are they really sure that large sums of money are being generated in this global economy without exploitation and suffering?

I'm not sure the idea of valuing something (beauty, truth, the environment) "in itself" or "for its own sake", taken to mean separately from any experience of contemplating, enjoying, or appreciating it, is coherent at all.

The main problem with Effective Altruism, as it comes across in that article, is that it promotes a vision of morally respectable life that is destined to have only a handful of adherents, and therefore a severely limited impact. Encouraging people of means to tithe 10% of their income to good causes is bound to be more effective than telling people that they are morally sub-standard if they don't throw themselves into lucrative pursuits they don't enjoy for the sake of charitable giving.

I mean, this remark--"If you accept the shallow-pond analogy, everyone is morally horrific"--is just kind of a stupid thing to say. (And not only because it's false.)

I've only heard of one person ever doing the ascetic lifestyle, donating income to charity thing, and it was only for a year, but he got written up in the papers. All I remembered was it involved a lot of oatmeal.

kindness is more valuable than art but art is more valuable than reducing suffering. life *is* suffering

eating oatmeal day after day is a kind of suffering and also art!

Haha that is very true!

& it probably goes without saying, but if any of these people choose reproduction over adoption, they should be burned alive, wellbeing of their children be damned

eating oatmeal is art

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/08/16/Ronnie-Barker-460x276.jpg

the work of oatmeal in the age of mechanical reproduction

There should be some special award for outstanding achievements in the field of oatmeal-eating (which is incidentally waaaay more cost-effective than the stereotypical all-ramen diet, + your heart will thank you)

Can we add awards for outstanding achievements in adding wheat germ and milk to oatmeal?

I think those fall within the purview of the "Inn-oat-vations" category

I got a big bag of hempseed on clearance earlier this year; that made oatmeal pretty fun for a few weeks

Now if we could just figure out a way to combine oatmeal with canned tuna...

Baked oatmeal loaf, maybe?

Or little cookies. Shoplift a jar of capers for extra flavor!!

ewwwwwwwwww

well, in 1996, there was no indication they were going to happen.

I know ilx likes to ride for this dude and ratm is alright but his singer-songwriter material is some of the most execrable music I have ever heard

why are you always such a wet blanket, paul ponzi

perhaps he is suffering

does that mean that we have to

yes, if are we sentient

One man's suffering is another man's reverse schadenfreude.

his singer-songwriter material is some of the most execrable music I have ever heard

Singer-songwriter music is a pestilence.

except when it's the best stuff ever

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/magazine/what-do-we-mean-when-we-call-art-necessary.html

The prospect of “necessary” art allows members of the audience to free themselves from having to make choices while offering the critic a nifty shorthand to convey the significance of her task, which may itself be one day condemned as dispensable. The effect is something like an absurd and endless syllabus, constantly updating to remind you of ways you might flunk as a moral being. It’s a slightly subtler version of the 2016 marketing tagline for the first late-night satirical news show with a female host, “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee”: “Watch or you’re sexist.”

I LOVE music. I’ve essentially dedicated my life to it.. but no song has ever changed the world, not even “We Are The World”

— mrk (@MerkSays) June 17, 2020

false

What the hell is “changing the world” anyway

true

You must ain’t never heard “OLD TOWN ROAD” 🙄

— OG $ILKY PSALM ONE 👩🏾‍🔬 (@PsalmOne) June 17, 2020

I have heard tell of a guitar that kills fascists.

Are you suggesting that this is not so?

lol this thread is an ilx first mention for “Effective Altruism”. The original article has disappeared, so THANK GOD for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140322045146/http://aeon.co/magazine/living-together/art-is-a-selfish-waste-of-time-says-effective-altruism/