There has been a tremendous amount of discussion and conflict in the past months over the state of Effective Altruism as a movement. For good reason too. SBF, someone I was once proud to highlight as a shining example of what EA had to bring, looks to have have committed one of history’s largest instances of fraud. I would be concerned if we weren’t in heated debates over what lessons to take from this!
After spending a few too many hours (this week has not been my most productive) reading through much of the debate, I noticed something: I’m still proud to call myself an effective altruist and my excitement is as high as ever.
If all of EA disappeared tomorrow, I would continue on my merry way trying to make things better. I would continue spending my free time trying to build a community in Denmark of people interested in spending their time and resources to do good as effectively as possible.
What brought me to EA was an intrinsic motivation to do as much good as possible, and nothing any other effective altruist can do is going to change this motivation.
I’m happy to consider anyone who shares that objective to be a friend, even if we don’t on the specifics of how exactly one should go about trying to do the most good. “Doing the most good” is a pretty nebulous concept after all. I would find it pretty weird if we all agreed completely on what that implies.
Remember:
- We’re all on the same team - We’re all just human beings try to do the best we can - We’re all acting on imperfect information
There has been a tremendous amount of discussion and conflict in the past months over the state of Effective Altruism as a movement. For good reason too. SBF, someone I was once proud to highlight as a shining example of what EA had to bring, looks to have have committed one of history’s largest instances of fraud. I would be concerned if we weren’t in heated debates over what lessons to take from this!
After spending a few too many hours (this week has not been my most productive) reading through much of the debate, I noticed something: I’m still proud to call myself an effective altruist and my excitement is as high as ever.
If all of EA disappeared tomorrow, I would continue on my merry way trying to make things better. I would continue spending my free time trying to build a community in Denmark of people interested in spending their time and resources to do good as effectively as possible.
What brought me to EA was an intrinsic motivation to do as much good as possible, and nothing any other effective altruist can do is going to change this motivation.
I’m happy to consider anyone who shares that objective to be a friend, even if we don’t on the specifics of how exactly one should go about trying to do the most good. “Doing the most good” is a pretty nebulous concept after all. I would find it pretty weird if we all agreed completely on what that implies.
Remember:
- We’re all on the same team
- We’re all just human beings try to do the best we can
- We’re all acting on imperfect information