EA Debate: Any Framework for Allocating Scarce Resources Yields Monstrous Cases
livgorton · x · 2026-10-09
livgorton weighs in on the controversy over resource-allocation frameworks in effective altruism: any attempt to write guidance for allocation under scarcity produces cases that feel monstrous, including principles like special obligations to those near to us.
Key points:
- Every donation to one cause explicitly favors it over another for reasons that usually go unstated; most people default to intuition
- Intuition carries real information about values but also substantial bias, so "just listen to your gut" is not a defensible answer
- She suspects the loudest online voices interpreting the framework in extreme ways aren't the majority contributors to EA-ish funding
A substantive ethics debate within the AI/EA community rather than a news item.
Related event: EA Community Debates Frameworks for Allocating Scarce Resources(2 posts)→
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