Basically, thick EA would involve a wide-ranging set of commitments or organizing one’s life around EA ideas, whereas thin EA might mean just accepting the principle that it makes sense to do the most good.
Though there might be competing ways to slice EA into thick and thin.
I was going to (at the very least) start a discussion on a similar dichotomy. At the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit, heads of different effective altruist organizations differed on how they believe effective altruism can best grow as a movement. The following is what I perceived:
William MacAskill of the Centre of Effective Altruism believes effective altruism should grow bigger, with many more people get involved, perhaps to the point at which effective altruism hits critical mass as a social movement.
Anna Salamon of the Center for Applied Rationality believes getting individual effective altruists to be more effective should dominate as an approach over trying to grow to a point of critical mass, in the present. It seems Ms. Salamon is concerned that if effective altruism ‘goes viral’, it may be diluted to the point at which the signal:noise ratio becomes too low for effective coordination to take place. It seems Ms. Salamon would prefer effective altruism be ‘thick’ rather than ‘thin’, although pertaining to lifestyle strategies more than principled commitments.
Geoff Anders of Leverage Research seemed to prefer an approach between those of MacAskill and Salamon, though I found his position somewhat inscrutable.
Personally, I agree with Anna Salamon the most, as it seems appropriately conservative, though I’ll be excited to see MacAskill, or Anders, proven correct. The plans presented at the effective altruism summit were about what effective altruism might do in the near-term, i.e., next year or two. In the long-term, I believe “slicing effective altruism into competing ways of thick and thin” will be the best approach.
I see no reason why EA cannot outreach broadly and stay true to its principles. Give Well I have heard described after a two minute explanation of what it did as Go Compare for charities (a price comparison site). Most people will be no more interested in the detail of how Give Well comes up with charities it does than how Go Compare works. To encourage greater giving a broad based genuine community needs to be created that makes greater giving normal. That there is an academic core is great, but that won’t be for many people. So I think the effect can remain thick, whilst the outreach can be broad.
There are a couple of reasons for the concern that effective altruism may grow too big too fast:
If effective altruism ‘goes viral’, some of us worry that it will become decentralized too quickly for the principles to adjust, and then an ‘effective altruist’ would just be anybody ‘who donates $10 to Oxfam’. That would counteract effective altruism’s initial mission.
This is just my speculation, but I believe effective altruists who believe the best cause for bettering the world is an unconventional one. If effective altruism grows too fast for anyone to stay on top of, unconventional but important causes may be discarded. If effective altruism was a grassroots movement supported by millions, we can’t be sure that a cause like ensuring superhuman machine intelligence will safeguard humanity, or ending factory farming, would be (sufficiently) supported.
Note that these aren’t my own opinions, and I’m just reporting my impression from the Effective Altruism Summit.
Vipul, I believe this discussion will happen at a wider, better scale if its given a post in its own right. If you (help) get something like that up on the site, I’ll share the link, provide feedback, and help the conversation get started.
I’d like to see a discussion on thick versus thin EA, similar to the discussions online of thick versus thin libertarianism, such as http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/10/03/libertarianism_through/
Basically, thick EA would involve a wide-ranging set of commitments or organizing one’s life around EA ideas, whereas thin EA might mean just accepting the principle that it makes sense to do the most good.
Though there might be competing ways to slice EA into thick and thin.
I was going to (at the very least) start a discussion on a similar dichotomy. At the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit, heads of different effective altruist organizations differed on how they believe effective altruism can best grow as a movement. The following is what I perceived:
William MacAskill of the Centre of Effective Altruism believes effective altruism should grow bigger, with many more people get involved, perhaps to the point at which effective altruism hits critical mass as a social movement.
Anna Salamon of the Center for Applied Rationality believes getting individual effective altruists to be more effective should dominate as an approach over trying to grow to a point of critical mass, in the present. It seems Ms. Salamon is concerned that if effective altruism ‘goes viral’, it may be diluted to the point at which the signal:noise ratio becomes too low for effective coordination to take place. It seems Ms. Salamon would prefer effective altruism be ‘thick’ rather than ‘thin’, although pertaining to lifestyle strategies more than principled commitments.
Geoff Anders of Leverage Research seemed to prefer an approach between those of MacAskill and Salamon, though I found his position somewhat inscrutable.
Personally, I agree with Anna Salamon the most, as it seems appropriately conservative, though I’ll be excited to see MacAskill, or Anders, proven correct. The plans presented at the effective altruism summit were about what effective altruism might do in the near-term, i.e., next year or two. In the long-term, I believe “slicing effective altruism into competing ways of thick and thin” will be the best approach.
I see no reason why EA cannot outreach broadly and stay true to its principles. Give Well I have heard described after a two minute explanation of what it did as Go Compare for charities (a price comparison site). Most people will be no more interested in the detail of how Give Well comes up with charities it does than how Go Compare works. To encourage greater giving a broad based genuine community needs to be created that makes greater giving normal. That there is an academic core is great, but that won’t be for many people. So I think the effect can remain thick, whilst the outreach can be broad.
There are a couple of reasons for the concern that effective altruism may grow too big too fast:
If effective altruism ‘goes viral’, some of us worry that it will become decentralized too quickly for the principles to adjust, and then an ‘effective altruist’ would just be anybody ‘who donates $10 to Oxfam’. That would counteract effective altruism’s initial mission.
This is just my speculation, but I believe effective altruists who believe the best cause for bettering the world is an unconventional one. If effective altruism grows too fast for anyone to stay on top of, unconventional but important causes may be discarded. If effective altruism was a grassroots movement supported by millions, we can’t be sure that a cause like ensuring superhuman machine intelligence will safeguard humanity, or ending factory farming, would be (sufficiently) supported.
Note that these aren’t my own opinions, and I’m just reporting my impression from the Effective Altruism Summit.
Vipul, I believe this discussion will happen at a wider, better scale if its given a post in its own right. If you (help) get something like that up on the site, I’ll share the link, provide feedback, and help the conversation get started.