254. Charity and Effective Altruism

2024-09-22

There are 1.5 million non-profit organizations in the US. Effective Altruists try to direct people towards the good ones, but many don’t agree with their picks - maybe the problem is bigger than “picking a good charity.”

Audio Version MP3

  1. The New Organon: or True Directions Concerning the Interpretation of Nature (Bacon, F., 1620) - https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bacon1620.pdf
  2. The Preacher’s Son: Joel Osteen and the making of Lakewood Church (Blunt, K., 2018) - https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Joel-Osteen-and-the-making-of-Lakewood-Church-12954518.php
  3. Wealth (Carnegie, A., 1889) - https://www1.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html
  4. Rating for Kids Wish Network (Charity Navigator, 2024) - https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/311579097
  5. Major UN report discusses existential risk and future generations (summary) (finm & ab, 2021) - https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Fwu2SLKeM5h5v95ww/major-un-report-discusses-existential-risk-and-future
  6. How Many Taxpayers Itemize Under Current Law? (Fíonta, 2019) - https://taxfoundation.org/blog/standard-deduction-itemized-deductions-current-law-2019/
  7. 2020 update on GiveWell’s moral weights (Givewell, 2020) - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hOQf6Ug1WpoicMyFDGoqH7tmf3Njjc15Z1DGERaTbnI/edit?usp=embed_facebook
  8. GiveWell Charity Reviews and Research (Givewell, 2024) - https://www.givewell.org/
  9. 2023 Data Overview (Giving USA, 2021) - https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-limited-data-tableau-visualization/
  10. The Utopia of Rules (Graeber, D., 2015) - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-the-utopia-of-rules
  11. America’s 50 worst charities rake in nearly $1 billion for corporate fundraisers (Hundly & Taggart, 2013) - https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation/americas-50-worst-charities-rake-in-nearly-1-billion-for-corporate/2339540/
  12. 2017 Financial Statements for Lakewood Church & Joel Osteen Ministries (Lakewood Church, 2017) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4489169-2017-Financial-Statements-for-Lakewood-Church.html
  13. Some Texas religious leaders live in lavish, tax-free estates thanks to obscure law (Lamm, E. D., Jay Root, Stephanie, 2021) - https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/unfair-burden/article/parsonages-religion-texas-tax-free-clergy-homes-16678079.php
  14. A preacher for Trump’s America: Joel Osteen and the prosperity gospel (Luce, E., 2019) - https://www.ft.com/content/3990ce66-60a6-11e9-b285-3acd5d43599e
  15. Sam Bankman-Fried and the effective altruism delusion (McBain, S., 2023) - https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2023/11/sam-bankman-fried-crypto-king-effective-altruism
  16. Megachurch preacher buys wife a $200,000 Lamborghini, tells parishioners ‘Don’t confuse what I do with who I am’ (Niemietz, B., 2018) - https://www.nydailynews.com/2018/12/16/megachurch-preacher-buys-wife-a-200000-lamborghini-tells-parishioners-dont-confuse-what-i-do-with-who-i-am/
  17. Nas Daily FTX video reupload , 2022) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5-AEGz2PJ0
  18. The Internet Classics Archive Phaedrus by Plato (Plato, 370AD) - https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html
  19. PreachersNSneakers Instagram (PreachersNSneakers, 2024) - https://www.instagram.com/preachersnsneakers/
  20. Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (Reich, R., 2020) - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691183497/just-giving
  21. Be rational! But what does it mean? A history of the idea of rationality and its relation to management thought (Rutgers, M., 1999) - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark-Rutgers/publication/235269023_Be_rational_But_what_does_it_mean_A_history_of_the_idea_of_rationality_and_its_relation_to_management_thought/links/579f299a08ae802facbe1ccc/Be-rational-But-what-does-it-mean-A-history-of-the-idea-of-rationality-and-its-relation-to-management-thought.pdf?_sg%5B0%5D=started_experiment_milestone&origin=journalDetail
  22. The Critique of Instrumental Reason from Weber to Habermas (Schecter, D., 2010) - https://www.torrossa.com/it/resources/an/5213672
  23. Citations Needed: Episode 162: How the ‘Data-Driven’ Label Sanitizes Cruel Austerity Politics (Shirazi & Johnson, 2022) - https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-162-how-the-data-driven-label-sanitizes-cruel-austerity-politics
  24. Is effective altruism growing? An update on the stock of funding vs people (Todd, B., 2021) - https://80000hours.org/2021/07/effective-altruism-growing/
  25. Why longtermism is the world’s most dangerous secular credo (Torres, É. P., 2021) - https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo
  26. Scientific Charity Movement (Wikipedia, 2024) - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientific_Charity_Movement&oldid=1230418116
  27. Instrumental and value rationality (Wikipedia, 2024) - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Instrumental_and_value_rationality&oldid=1233188008
  28. Lakewood Church (Wikipedia, 2024) - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lakewood_Church&oldid=1242969043
  29. Sam Bankman-Fried (Wikipedia, 2024) - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sam_Bankman-Fried&oldid=1243981880

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