While reading Rhys Southan’s article about Effective Altruism, there were a few parts that stood out to me. I disagreed with most of the article and felt like the movement was basically just a cult. However, this one part was relevant. Southan talks about Peter Singer’s experiment where someone is faced with the challenge of either helping someone or not when it could have a negative effect to them in the long run. The example used was a boy who fell into a pond and was drowning. I think the correct response would be to follow the boy and help him out of the pond. Southan then ties this to society not helping people “drowning” in poverty and distress when we have the resources to help. I think this is really smart, however, I feel that the Effective Altruists take this to an unnecessary extreme. I feel that people can help others in their own way and they do not have to make their lives miserable to do so. This leads me to the next part of the text that stood out to me. The author explains that the Effective Altruists follow a formula to find out how much good they really have. The formula is “apparent good achieved minutes the good your counterfactual replacement would have achieved equals your actual good achieved.” My comment on this is that everyone shines in their own ways though and certain minor things can add up to a big thing. I also feel that people should do good things out of the drive from their heart not to fulfill an equation because then the good deed becomes slightly selfish. People also then are always afraid of the goodness of what they do and as it says in other places they sometimes take up jobs they hate just so that they can do good. That being said, I feel that most of the article does not align with the way that I think people should live their life and the group seems borderline like a colt.
First of all, your website looks great, and I really enjoyed reading your About Me page. You’ve come such a long way to get here! I’m excited about your interest in education, and I look forward to hearing your unique perspective in the classroom!
Your annotations are off to a good start. I can see such enthusiasm in those questions marks and all cap comments! 🙂 Keep that up!
I enjoyed reading your reflection above. I want to encourage you to elaborate on this sentence that you wrote, “I also feel that people should do good things out of the drive from their heart not to fulfill an equation because then the good deed becomes slightly selfish–” What about the drive to fulfill an equation is selfish? I’m curious what you will find as you articulate an answer.
Keep up the good work, Emily! So glad to have you in the class!