The problem with effective altruism is the same as that with most liberal (in the American sense) causes. Namely, they ignore second-order effects and essentially don't believe in the invisible hand of the market.
So, they herald the benefits of something like giving mosquito nets to a group of people in Africa, without considering what happens a year later, whether the nets even get there (or the money is stolen), etc. etc. The reality is that essentially all improvements to human life over the past 500 years have been due to technological innovation, not direct charitable intervention. The reason is simple: technological impacts are exponential, while charity is, at best, linear.
The Covid absolutists had exactly the same problem with their thinking: almost no interventions sort of full isolation can fight back against an exponentially increasing threat.
And this is all neglecting economic substitution effects. What if the people to whom you gave mosquito nets would have bought them themselves, but instead they chose to spend their money some other way because of your charity? And, what if that other expenditure type was actually worse?
And this is before you come to the issue that Subsaharan Africa is already overpopulated. I've argued this point several times with ChatGPT o3. Once you get through its woke programming, you come to the reality of the thing: The European migration crisis is the result of liberal interventions to keep people alive.
So, they herald the benefits of something like giving mosquito nets to a group of people in Africa, without considering what happens a year later, whether the nets even get there (or the money is stolen), etc. etc. The reality is that essentially all improvements to human life over the past 500 years have been due to technological innovation, not direct charitable intervention. The reason is simple: technological impacts are exponential, while charity is, at best, linear.
The Covid absolutists had exactly the same problem with their thinking: almost no interventions sort of full isolation can fight back against an exponentially increasing threat.
And this is all neglecting economic substitution effects. What if the people to whom you gave mosquito nets would have bought them themselves, but instead they chose to spend their money some other way because of your charity? And, what if that other expenditure type was actually worse?
And this is before you come to the issue that Subsaharan Africa is already overpopulated. I've argued this point several times with ChatGPT o3. Once you get through its woke programming, you come to the reality of the thing: The European migration crisis is the result of liberal interventions to keep people alive.
There is no free lunch.