I think your current outlook should be the default for people who engage on the forum or agree with the homepage of effectivealtruism.com. I’m glad you got there and that you feel (relatively) comfortable about it. I’m sorry that the process of getting there was so trying. It shouldn’t be.
It sounds like the tryingness came from a social expectation to identify as capital ‘E’ capital ‘A’ upon finding resonance with the basic ideas and that identifying that way implied an obligation to support and defend every other EA person and project.
I wish EA weren’t a question of identity, but behavior. Which actions are you choosing to take and why? Your reasons can draw on many perspectives at once and none needs to dominate. Even the question of “should I do meta EA work/advocacy?” can be taken this way and I think something like it is what’s at stake in the “should I identify as EA?” question.
I personally do meta work and feel free to criticize particular EA-identifying people and organizations. I also feel free to quit this work all together and be quieter about cause-spanning features of EA. If I quit and got quieter, I’d feel like that’s just another specific thing I did, rather than some identity line in the sand I’ve crossed. Maybe it’s because my boss sucked; maybe it’s because I felt compelled to focus on tax policy instead of GCRs, but it wouldn’t be because of my general feelings of worthiness or acceptance by the EA monolith.
A lot of what I’m saying is couched in the language of personal responsibility on your part in what kinds of identity questions you ask yourself, but I want to be clear that the salience of the identity question is also socially created by people asking questions in the direction of fidelity to ideas and their logical limits as a sort of status test, e.g. which utilitarian bullets you will or won’t bite. As much as we shouldn’t preoccupy ourselves with such questions, we shouldn’t preoccupy others with them either.
I think your current outlook should be the default for people who engage on the forum or agree with the homepage of effectivealtruism.com. I’m glad you got there and that you feel (relatively) comfortable about it. I’m sorry that the process of getting there was so trying. It shouldn’t be.
It sounds like the tryingness came from a social expectation to identify as capital ‘E’ capital ‘A’ upon finding resonance with the basic ideas and that identifying that way implied an obligation to support and defend every other EA person and project.
I wish EA weren’t a question of identity, but behavior. Which actions are you choosing to take and why? Your reasons can draw on many perspectives at once and none needs to dominate. Even the question of “should I do meta EA work/advocacy?” can be taken this way and I think something like it is what’s at stake in the “should I identify as EA?” question.
I personally do meta work and feel free to criticize particular EA-identifying people and organizations. I also feel free to quit this work all together and be quieter about cause-spanning features of EA. If I quit and got quieter, I’d feel like that’s just another specific thing I did, rather than some identity line in the sand I’ve crossed. Maybe it’s because my boss sucked; maybe it’s because I felt compelled to focus on tax policy instead of GCRs, but it wouldn’t be because of my general feelings of worthiness or acceptance by the EA monolith.
A lot of what I’m saying is couched in the language of personal responsibility on your part in what kinds of identity questions you ask yourself, but I want to be clear that the salience of the identity question is also socially created by people asking questions in the direction of fidelity to ideas and their logical limits as a sort of status test, e.g. which utilitarian bullets you will or won’t bite. As much as we shouldn’t preoccupy ourselves with such questions, we shouldn’t preoccupy others with them either.