Effective altruism is one of the most influential philosophical movements of our time, including in its ranks celebrity philosophers like Peter Singer and Nick Bostrom, and funded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. But Effective Altruism is in serious trouble, argues Jonathan Anomaly. It has fallen prey to group think, corruption, and now reflects a perverse reality that Nietzsche warned about in his Genealogy of Morals. The effective altruists have become the high priests, powerful gatekeepers of the truth and manipulators of society.

The effective altruism (EA) movement arose from an innocuous idea: if we are going to give to charity, we should invest in causes that pass a cost-benefit test. We could allow ourselves to be pulled by our heart strings when we see a starving child in Ethiopia and donate to a charity that wastes most of its money on advertising and virtue signaling. Or we could think about how Ethiopians might reduce future famines by helping them change their institutions or investing in better technology, for example.