Max Ingersoll: Doughnut Altruism

Finding a balance between being ideological and practical is an important challenge that I have been thinking about and that all effective altruists should reflect on.

This ties into one critique of EA and many similar movements, that they are more about getting rid of something (suffering) rather aspiring to a particular vision of the world. The practical approach of working within the current systems to make positive change happens is an incredible and powerful EA idea, which will play a crucial role in the prevention of massive problems that are too big for our tribal-human brains to emotionally grasp because of the extensive list of cognitive biases we have that prevent us from being able to emotionally understand global issues.

The most massive global issue I see right now is preventing climate runaway from happening (I see the point of no return for this to be when the melting of the massive stores of permafrost in colder climates starts to occur). Once the massive stores of permafrost start to melt and the methane (which has up to 80x the greenhouse effect as the same mass of CO2) therein begins to be released into the atmosphere, the vicious cycle of increased greenhouse effect causing more warming and therefore melting even more permafrost and releasing more methane takes over, and will cause incredibly intense rapid warming.

Stopping this from happening while also helping lift up people who face even more immediate problems is the number one priority at the moment, and globally uniting under this high-level goal/intention is crucial if we are to be successful. While we are working to solve these problems; however, it is crucial that we do maintain creativity and idealism of how current structures could be changed to make the world a better place. Coming up with a compelling optimistic vision for what the future could also benefit action towards addressing our current problems. Holding the weight of all of the destruction and suffering in the world is incredibly spiritually draining. We need to come up with a new, positive, vision for the future of the world, which people can hold. This vision must accurately frame the issues at hand, but also give reasons for people to hope.

Here’s something from another vat.

The book Doughut Economics by Kate Raworth proposes a reframing of current economics around different goals. She puts forth that it isn’t the techniques of systems analysis and analyzing the flow of goods that is propagating harmful societal habits, but rather it is the using of that economic analysis to maximize growth: and the implicitly treatment of growth as an end goal. She proposes that instead, we should use these well-developed economic techniques to “stay within the doughut,” which means two things: increasing the well-being for humans on Earth while preventing the destabilization of the natural world (see figure). This practically-oriented approach to addressing the major problems by slightly shifting current practices is exciting, and I hope to see the further spread of the idea.

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ingersoll@college.harvard.edu