The Altruists | Official Trailer

[u/FairlyInvolved]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aGeKSSyuhk

[u/Norman_Door]

Oh noooooooooooooo. Get ready to clarify what EA actually is all over again.

[u/Pristine-Aspect-3086 → u/Norman_Door]

tbh i think this is well past the date when it would have held interest for the general population

[u/Norman_Door → u/Pristine-Aspect-3086]

FWIW, the Netflix series Inventing Anna was a huge hit in 2022, despite being based on events that took place between 2013 and 2017. So we’re well within the window for a story like this to resurface in the public consciousness (not to imply that public interest is in any way linear).

[u/common_yarrow → u/Norman_Door]

A movement that hired the woman in the trailer, Caroline Ellison, out of prison to run finances at a charity managing effective altruist money, explicitly to thank her for the crimes she committed: https://sfstandard.com/2026/09/23/caroline-ellison-new-job-ftx-manifund/

[u/Tinac4 → u/common_yarrow]

And that decision was sharply criticized by the rest of the community. -84 karma, 9 agree/82 disagree. Top comment was by the CEO of CEA saying it was a bad idea, +165 karma, 61 agree/3 disagree. The vast majority of the other comments were in agreement. A wave of substack posts in the aftermath also called it a bad idea.

I'd ideally like to see 0/91 instead of 9/82, but I worry the show is going to do exactly the same thing your comment does: laser-focus on a small minority of people who make crappy decisions without mentioning the supermajority of more reasonable people who actively oppose those decisions. EA as a "movement" did not hire her by any stretch of the imagination; if the "movement" had a say this never would've happened. But contrary to some of our critics, we're not a cult that can rigidly prevent everyone associated from us from doing stupid things.

(Manifund's reasoning also had nothing to do with "thanking her", regardless of how bad it was.)

[u/Norman_Door → u/common_yarrow]

I have my fair share of EA critiques but saying "the movement" hired Caroline Ellison is disingenuous at best.

See /u/Tinac4's comment. Austin, the CEO of Manifund and previously its only employee, made a moronic (and possibly corrupt!) decision hiring her for a prominent financial role. And thankfully, several prominent organizations within the EA ecosystem, including the Centre for Effective Altruism, have responded by saying they will not be collaborating with / platforming Manifund for the foreseeable future.

[u/Some_Guy_87 → u/Norman_Door]

Isn't your first link a post from the very same person you are responding to? I feel like some misunderstanding is going on here 🤔 .

[u/Norman_Door → u/Some_Guy_87]

Good catch - not sure. /u/common_yarrow and Yarrow Bouchard might be the same person. But it might also just be a coincidence. 🤷

[u/Nosian_Magazine → u/common_yarrow]

Resulted in a bit of a falling out between some of the EA groups, and the guy who hired her saying he was going to reconsider his relationship to EA https://nosian.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-linked-orgs-split

[u/Roosevelt1933]

It’s hard to know from just a trailer- but it feels like this is framing the story as noble intentions (EA) being corrupted by power and wealth (crypto wealth). This is probably a more positive framing than how FTX is sometimes presented- as if McAskill basically instructed Sam to do fraud

[u/ruffello]

This actually looks pretty good tbh

[u/flyawaywithmeee]

This is like making a show about the Jonestown massacre and calling it “the Christians” wtaf

[u/Competitive_Class788]

Has anyone already has the possibility to watch the film somehow? What are your thoughts? Is it a fair portrait of our diverse movement?

[u/TheDancingRobot → u/Competitive_Class788]

It's a series - definitely still in post-production. Maybe the first few episodes are ready...

[u/KageKatze → u/Competitive_Class788]

So asking as a very confused outsider how is EA full of both proud NeoNazis and basic ass tech workers saying factory farming might be a little cruel?

[u/Competitive_Class788 → u/KageKatze]

Full of proud Nazis? I haven't heared of any right Nazi as of now. Do you mean controversial, racist or ableist things some famous philosophers or thinkers within the movement have said in the past? For example Nick Bostrom, Peter Winger, David Pearce come to mind with certain sentences they made

[u/KageKatze → u/Competitive_Class788]

I mean Twitter is full of NeoNazis with e/acc in their bio or username. Musk is probably the single biggest introduction of "longtermism" to the general public. There's the whole roko's rebranded pascal's wager cult that believes in advancing ""AI"" at all costs because the future can contain infinite potential ends to justify the means. There just seems to be a very loud public facing version of "effective altruism" and related branching ideologies that seemingly most people here wouldn't like. It would be far from the first time the far right had found a random term to colonize eg what happened with "libertarians".

[u/Competitive_Class788 → u/KageKatze]

I can only speak for myself. I'm completely against e/acc and all for a pause in the race to the bottom AGI/ASI and Moloch. I'm a negative Utilitarian and like the works of Magnus Vinding and Brian Tomasik especially. Afaik EAs always said we have to align such powerful systems. E/acc don't really care about that, do they?

I and most other EAs fear loss of control, steady dictatorship, existential risks, other risks we dobt see coming. I'm also concerned aviut suffering (s-risks) in particular

[u/KageKatze → u/Competitive_Class788]

You gave me a lot to look into hehe. I appreciate your time a patience

[u/Tinac4 → u/KageKatze]

e/accs and EAs come from very different places. EAs came first; we’re mostly left-leaning tech nerds. ~70% left of center, <5% identify as right of center and 7% as libertarian (although not the far-right/Trump-voting kind, they’re people like Bryan Caplan who love YIMBYism and open borders).

e/accs showed up in 2024 or so as a backlash to EAs starting to have a real influence on AI policy. Similar name, but it was deliberately chosen to set themselves up in opposition. They came from other places: some combination of the tech right (“Beff Jezos”, Marc Andreesen), open source software devs with a libertarian streak (both left and right), and more stereotypical “tech bros” and startup employees. AFAIK no prominent e/accs used to be EAs, and vice versa.

Both factions involve a lot of people who work in tech and who think AI could go crazy places in the next decade or two, but the similarities end there. EAs are very worried about AI leading to human disempowerment or extinction*, while e/accs are either unconcerned or accept the Pascal’s wager you described above. As a result, the relationship between EA and e/acc is somewhere between mutual distaste and mutual hatred. Google some of David Sacks’ comments on EA if you want to get an idea of how friendly that relationship is.

*A bunch focus on global health or animal welfare instead; they do awesome work.)

[u/KageKatze → u/Tinac4]

Ok thank you very much for the explanation friend 😌

[u/minimalis-t → u/KageKatze]

EA and e/acc are not the same thing...

[u/petitlita]

ah sweet more bad PR

[u/vesperythings]

why even spread this nonsense?

[u/blueshoesrcool → u/vesperythings]

This is not scout mindset.