Cross-posted from Otherwise. Most EAs won't find these arguments new.

Last month, Emma Goldberg wrote a NYT piece contrasting effective altruism with approaches that refuse to quantify meaningful experiences. The piece indicates that effective altruism is creepily numbers-focused. Goldberg asks “what if charity shouldn’t be optimized?”

The egalitarian answer

Dylan Matthews gives a try at answering a question in the piece: “How can anyone put a numerical value on a holy space” like Notre Dame cathedral? For the $760 million spent restoring the cathedral, he estimates you could prevent 47,500 deaths from malaria.

“47,500 people is about five times the population of the town I grew up in. . . . It's useful to imagine walking down Main Street, stopping at each table at the diner Lou's, shaking hands with as many people as you can, and telling them, ‘I think you need to die to make a cathedral [...]

---

Outline:

(00:29) The egalitarian answer

(01:16) Who prefers magnificence?

(03:10) Inequality has its benefits

(04:34) Is there enough for everybody to have access to the finer things?

(05:37) The balance of good and bad

(06:33) Both sides have ugly aspects

(07:04) These aren't the only choices

(08:58) Related:

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 2 images which were described by AI.

---

First published:
January 13th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TiFeCBxKj79bohoDY/the-ugly-sides-of-two-approaches-to-charity

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

---

---

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.