The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?
Maybe this is superficial, but I was put off by the name &quot;effective altruism&quot;. By naming it such, it felt like an implicit dig that most altruism is not effective. Like oh your altruism is not that productive, but my altruism, well it&#x27;s <i>effective</i> altruism. Especially when that notion is pushed by people who overlap with the rationalist subculture, another arrogantly named group.<p>In general I find it concerning when technical people encroach upon non-technical areas without giving a sufficient amount of respect to the people who were in the field already. Those people, the experts, do know a lot and to have this kind of nerd savior branding of <i>effective</i> altruism, as if you are bringing the enlightenment that allows these poor altruists to finally be effective, well that just seems a little presumptuous.