Marks

I'm not quite sure where, precisely, EA jumps from "donate a kidney and donate money to buy mosquito nets," which, whatever the precise merits of those things, are in the spirit of what most people would understand by hearing the term, "Effective Altruism," to, "and The God Kings Of The Movement Must Be Allowed To Accumulate All the Wealth To Fight The Robot Apocalypse of 4837."

It really isn't any different than any other scam megachurch, complete with the Holy Writings from the Oxford Philosopy Professor.

Feedback and advice. Why, then, did MacAskill make these assertions? In the first few pages of the book’s introduction, MacAskill writes that it took more than a decade’s worth of full-time work to complete the manuscript, two years of which were dedicated to fact-checking its claims. And in the acknowledgments section, he lists 30 scientists and an entire research group as having been consulted on “climate change” or “climate science.”

I wrote to all the scientists MacAskill thanked for providing “feedback and advice,” and the responses were surprising. None of the 20 scientists who responded to my email said they had advised MacAskill on the controversial climate claims above, and indeed most added, without my prompting, that they very strongly disagree with those claims.

Many of the scientists said they had no recollection of speaking or corresponding with MacAskill or any of the research assistants and contributors named in his book. The most disturbing responses came from five scientists who told me that they were almost certainly never consulted.

“There is a mistake. I do not know MacAskill,” replied one of the scientists.

Prosperity Gospel for agnostics, indeed. Not the first time the scammed are those who imagine they are least susceptible to scams. Even now if you bring this up on social media someone is going to jump in with, "what's wrong with mosquito nets???", as if MacAskill invented them.

All part of the scam. Awaiting the follow up New Yorker piece.