I.
I'm jumping on the "actually, effective altruism is bad" bandwagon. Even though I think it is mostly good.
I identify as a communitarian, even when it comes to philanthropy. This puts me at odds with EA individuals but I think it actually fits with their philosophy.
In his book Moral Tribes, Joshua Greene talks a lot about utilitarianism, which he believes (and I agree) is the most misunderstood philosophy in the world. The greatest good for the greatest number, what could be wrong with that? The common argument against it is that, according to utilitarianism (which is at the heart of EA), if killing my mother and harvesting her organs will save seven lives then I must do it. If you find this scenario repulsive and reject it, then you must reject utilitarianism.
But wait, Greene says, if we all agree that this fictional society is worse, then that means we reject it on utilitarian grounds. In other words, we agree killing our mother to save the lives of seven strangers would not be for the greatest good.
The problem with this interpretation of utilitarianism is that it only takes into account that which can be quantified.
Yes, we can count that the loss of my mother's life resulted in the saving of seven other lives. But we cannot account for the grieving that my family and I experience. We cannot quantify the absolute horror everyone will be living in, knowing their life could be taken away by some utilitarians to provide for the greater good. It is this unquantifiable aspect of life that I am interested in.
II.
In Tribe, Sebastian Junger describes an asymmetry between the returning of hostages among early settlers and Native Americans. When the Native Americans released a colonist hostage, the colonists would sometimes refuse to return to their communities or even sneak out and go back to live with the Native Americans. What's interesting isn't how often it happened, but that it happened at all. Because the reverse never occurred; released Native American hostages always rejoined their tribe.
By every quantifiable metric, living in civilization (as the colonists did) is better than living a hunter/gatherer life (as the Natives did); life expectancy, health care, literacy levels, rates of poverty, etc.
Indeed, Scott Siskind notes a similar pattern with the Amish: "Relatively few Amish 'defect' to regular modern society." While they do beat other Americans in health outcomes, they lack the comforts of modern society. So there must be something about these lifestyles that causes people to prefer them to the "quantifiably better" lifestyle of modern civilization.
I call that "something" community.
III.
My case does not purely rest on anecdotes. We actually have some data. When you have strong social connections in your community, it makes you happier.
Social connections are one of the most important factors for your happiness and health. pic.twitter.com/Ysu0fe76vi
— Our World in Data (@OurWorldInData) August 1, 2022
The effect of money on happiness has a low ceiling; after a certain point, making more money will not make you happier. But the social connections that come from being a part of a community will improve your life, which explains why a lonely life of material comfort can be less appealing than a materially-poor life with rich social connections.
One of the places people develop social connections through community is church. Indeed, this paper shows that:
"People living in an area with a higher density of co-religionists have higher incomes, they are less likely to be high school dropouts, and more likely to have a college degree. Living in such an area also reduces the odds of receiving welfare, decreases the odds of being divorced, and increases the odds of being married."
Not only that, social connections are a key, possibly the key, driver of social mobility. Raj Chetty's research shows that when poor children have friendships that cut across class lines, it increases their earning potential. There is significant variance in the number of cross-class friendships by community. In other words, the community you live in plays an outsized role in your life outcomes. So creating stronger communities will lift more people out of poverty and, probably, increase their happiness.
So while I understand that donating mosquito nets to people in Somalia will save more lives than any other donation I could make, I also believe that we don't fully grasp how much strengthening communities can improve our lives because it's harder to quantify. (I also believe that philanthropy that feels good for the donor will lead to more philanthropy, regardless of how EA-approved the charity is.)
IV.
A final thought regarding the Chetty research. The study showed that the effects of cross-class relationships are true regardless of race, the benefits of poor kids befriending rich kids aren't only extended to white kids. And the communities with large Black populations tend to be the most disconnected, with both black and white citizens having fewer high-income friends to help them rise out of poverty.
From this basis I propose my solution to reducing the racial wage gap: increasing the number of interracial friendships, specifically cross-class ones. And to take this a step further and do the binary Kendi good guy/bad guy thing: Any policy that reduces or sustains the number of black-white friendships is racist. Any policy that increases the number of black-white friendships is antiracist.
That means DEI trainings that only cause white people to feel guilty, to walk on egg shells, or to look down upon poor white people, rather than strengthening interracial friendships, are racist. Yes, racist.
So let's tear down the walls that prevent us from having friendships outside our racial, social, and economic groups. And if you find a good charity doing this type of work, support them! If an effective altruist criticizes you, you just tell them that they are racist for not working to increase the number of interracial friendships.
