Post by @davidculley@hachyderm.io

Eliezer Yudkowsky is the guy who coined the term Effective Altruism, the toxic ideology that billionaires and capitalism-brained aspiring millionaires use to excuse their greed.

They tell themselves, for example, that it's good to work at awful companies such as Facebook/Meta to make ungodly amounts of money because, "look at all the good things I could do with all that money," while ignoring all the awful consequences of them working for these companies.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is in large parts responsible for introducing and turning billionaires to this toxic ideology. He's also responsbile for another toxic ideology called Rationalism where they suppress all their feelings, and its communities such as LessWrong or Slate Star Codex.

He apparently also wrote a fan-fiction book for Harry Potter, called "Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality". Its premise is that Harry Potter was raised by scientists and University of Oxford professors (🙄), and at the age of 10 having already received a rigorous scientific education, before being sent to Hogwarts, where he then examines the magic through the lens of science.

"Productivity YouTuber" Ali Abdaal who has millions of uneducated gullible followers, is now promoting that book with a video literally titled, "I am begging you to read [this book]."

Promoting Harry Potter in 2026 is definitely a choice. J. K. Rowling is doing her best to ensure the death of all transgender people. What Rowling is doing literally falls under the definition of genocide.

Promoting the works of Effective Altruists in 2026 is definitely a choice.

Ali Abdaal represents everything that is wrong with Gen Z aspiring to become millionaires by way of becoming YouTubers. Please stop watching him.

I discovered his channel in 2018 or so, when he showed his viewers the flashcard app Anki. And I learned how to study effectively thanks to him, something school or my parents never taught me. But I quickly got turned off by his channel around 2019 or so when he started pivoting to iPad reviews like every other tech channel. And especially when his popularity exploded in 2020 with everyone stuck at home due to the pandemic.

Please stop watching him if you do.

#EffectiveAltruism #TESCREAL #HarryPotter

#effectivealtruism #harrypotter #tescreal

7 Replies

5 Boosts

David Culley

@davidculley@hachyderm.io 2 hr. ago

If you've read this far, definitely also read this entire thread (by @mxchara):

https://cyberpunk.lol/@mxchara/117152288816219820

#EffectiveAltruism #TESCREAL #HarryPotter

View

Monica Huang Potter

@mhpotter@socialbc.ca 2 wk. ago

@davidculley This is a mischaracterization on several fronts.

1) The Effective Altruist movement actively discourages taking on "harmful jobs" [1] and considers "extreme power concentration" one of the big issues of our time [2]

(1/3)

[1] https://80000hours.org/articles/harmful-career/

[2] https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/extreme-power-concentration/

80,000 Hours

Extreme power concentration | 80,000 Hours

Advanced AI technology may enable its creators, or others who control it, to attempt and achieve unprecedented societal power grabs. Under certain circumstances, they could use these systems to take control of whole economies, militaries, and governments. This kind of power grab from a single person or small group would pose a major threat to the rest of humanity.

80,000 Hours

Why you should avoid harmful jobs, even if you’ll do more good.

We look at how to analyse these situations using moral philosophy, and then apply the results to some common options, like finance, law and the oil industry.

David Culley

@davidculley@hachyderm.io 2 wk. ago

@mhpotter Effective Altruism (EA) is a toxic ideology and part of the #TESCREAL bundle that was coined by Timnit Gebru and Emile Torres. You should read their works rather than the EA's own promotion materials.

For your convenience, I summarized it here:
https://hachyderm.io/@davidculley/116280127733185900

I don't know much about you, but you clearly hang around the wrong people and/or consume the wrong content if you defend Effective Altruism. You don't even realize the indoctrination path you're on. I strongly advise you to consider your media consumption habits.

Monica Huang Potter

@mhpotter@socialbc.ca 2 wk. ago

@davidculley Last time I checked, the Centre for Effective Altruism is a UK based think tank started by Oxford philosophy professors William MacAskill and Toby Ord. [1]

I consume media that I think edifies me. Do you suggest that people you disagree with should be ignored? Because you call them "toxic" without justification?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Effective_Altruism

Centre for Effective Altruism - Wikipedia

Bruno Nicoletti

@bjn@mstdn.social last wk.

@mhpotter @davidculley Who promptly demonstrated their “altruism” by blowing millions on buying a stately home for their headquarters and more on hosting “altruistic” events. All without doing anything at all vaguely altruistic, as the word is understood by normal human beings.

1 more reply

David Culley

@davidculley@hachyderm.io last wk.

@mhpotter I gave you a lot of justification: the works by Timnit Gebru and Emile Torres. That I even summarized and linked for you. You just ignored it.

The University of Oxford, and especially their philosophy department is highly problematic. They also employ Nick Bostrom and other highly problematic professors who are all in one way or another connected to billionaires and eugenicists, and they "criti-hype" AI for billionaires by describing doomsday scenarios.

As long as the University of Oxford doesn't cut ties with these philosophy professors, the University of Oxford is itself problematic. So are think tanks coming out of it.

The University of Oxford also employs Israeli professors (for example, in their computer science department) who are openly zionist and genocidal.

#TESCREAL #EffectiveAltruism

1+ more replies

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange 2 wk. ago

@davidculley

They tell themselves, for example, that it's good to work at awful companies such as Facebook/Meta to make ungodly amounts of money because, "look at all the good things I could do with all that money," while ignoring all the awful consequences of them working for these companies.

Warren Buffet made a similar claim: he didn't give to charities because he could use the money from the donations to instead make significantly more money, which would mean that he'd later be able to give more money to charities and have a bigger impact. Which sounds completely plausible if you ignore two important things:

The time value of money. An intervention now may have a cascading impact and do much more good long term than a bigger intervention later. The people you might help today might die without the intervention.
The fact that wealth inequality is the cause of a lot of the things charities exist to help and making wealth inequality worse to be able to do good later is not really a winning strategy.