Molly White

Molly White is the writer behind the Citation Needed newsletter, and in Kyle’s notes she supplies the sharpest skeptical read on the EA-vs-e/acc dichotomy. Her “Effective Obfuscation” essay (filed in It’s Time To Build… But Build What - Research) argues that, despite their differences over AI, Effective Altruism and Effective Accelerationism share a flexible justifying logic: each “can be used to justify nearly any course of action an adherent wants to take,” while offering adherents “an easy way to brand themselves as a deep-thinking do-gooder.”

Her critique of EA is the more pointed: she notes ideological originator William MacAskill urging people not to boycott sweatshops, and observes that, taken to the extreme, the framework “could feasibly justify committing massive fraud… to obtain billions” to maybe-someday donate. On the e/acc side, she captures its register that those who seek guardrails on technological development “are no better than murderers.” Kyle files her work under Effective Accelerationism and Effective Altruism as the connective “justify anything” critique that links the two ostensibly opposed movements.

Context: Molly White is a software engineer, Wikipedia editor, and cryptocurrency-skeptic writer best known for the site “Web3 is Going Just Great” and the Citation Needed newsletter. (General background; Kyle’s notes attest the “Effective Obfuscation” essay specifically.)

Where this appears

• It’s Time To Build… But Build What - Research — source of her “Effective Obfuscation” essay, filed as the critical read on the EA-vs-e/acc dichotomy.
• Effective Accelerationism — her flexible-justification critique linking e/acc to EA.
• Effective Altruism — the MacAskill/sweatshop and “justify anything” critique.