Effective Altruism as a movement is relatively brand new—we can’t afford major schisms or we may not continue as a relevant cultural force in 10-20 years.
If the next year looks anything like the last six months, I do not feel bullish about EA being a relevant (and positive) cultural force in 2033. I hate to say that, but I think it’s important for us to be clear-eyed about the current status of the movement—and its likely trajectory—in figuring out how to move forward.
Sometimes when playing chess, it becomes clear you can’t win, and your goal shifts from winning to avoiding a loss. So when you say “we can’t afford major schisms,” my reaction is that we may not be in a place where we can afford the best option (i.e., not schisming), or to put this in more EA terms, sometimes the most cost-effective interventions are unaffordable.
Since reading this comment, I’ve been thinking about what it would look like for EA to be dying. After all, billions of dollars are committed to EA, many people consider themselves to be EAs, and there are lots of organizations aligned with the movement. Given that, how could EA die? To me, EA dying might look like: (1) limited new funding being committed to EA (or funding that was committed disappearing), (2) the number of people who identify as EAs decreasing, and (3) EA organizations failing. I think we have some evidencefor3; from conversations with people, I am guessing we’ll start to see (2); and I’m worried that EA is going to have an increasingly hard time finding new funding (plus the demise of FTX alone constitutes (1)). So I’m really worried that EA (as we know it) is dying.
To perhaps bend this metaphor to its breaking point, unless you think EA definitely isn’t dying, it’s still sensible to have an advanced directive and organ donation plan in place. In other words, I think it’s worth considering what a productive schism would look like—and what the likely trajectory of EA sans-schism is—before we rule out the “divide and conquer” approach, even if schisming is an outcome we could ideally avoid.
One thing I remain steadfastly optimistic about is the creativity, brilliance, and motivation of EAs. People in this community really want to improve the world, and I believe we can, but we should take a really hard look at whether our current approach—one of being unified under the EA umbrella—will be the best one going forward.
Just to add a note of optimism: a) people always take recent news too seriously; and b) many people don’t read the forum. It’s easy to think that everything is gloom if you spend too much time reading the drama on the forum, but most of reality hasn’t changed. We still have thousands of people deeply engaged in doing good and their projects are still going as well as they were before. There are problems, sure, but announcing death is extremely premature IMO.
I appreciate your point, but this isn’t consistent with my experience. I find that the Forum seems to be more bullish on EA than both EAs and non-EAs I talk to elsewhere/privately.
[Edit: If you feel like it, I’d also appreciate a response to my substantive points. Is it that:
(1) Your framework for what it’d look like for EA to be dying is different from mine?
(2) You accept my framework, but don’t think EA currently meets the criteria I’ve delineated?
And, separately, do you disagree with my point that even if EA dying is unlikely, we should still make a contingency plan?]
I think finding out the true state of play here is really important. What signs would we look for a sign of EA movements health that follow the 3 stages you suggested above? Perhaps the rate of sign-ups to the GWWC pledge, or total EAG applications, or people signing up to EA virtual courses? Funding might be easier to track, but the numbers are always going to be skewed by Open Philanthropy, and I don’t think that Dustin and Cari are going to go anywhere soon (which might update you slightly toward EA robustness?).
I guess there might be more failure modes than EA ‘collapse’, though we ought to watch out for it. This could be a bit of a retrenchment for the movement, where hopefully we can learn from our mistakes, improve institutions, and keep doing good in 2023 and beyond.
I’d suggest unrelenting, near-uniform public hatred as a potential failure mode (which != having many enemies or being merely unpopular). Some degree of other actors being willing to cooperate can be awfully important to effectiveness.
I don’t agree with any of your criteria for “death”. All of those sound totally survivable. “EA exits its recent high-growth phase” is very different from dying.
I would modify them to:
Significant year-on-year decreases in funding
Significant year-on-year decreases in self-identifying EAs
i.e. we transition to a negative growth regime and stay there.
And I think we could survive a lot of organizational collapse so I wouldn’t even include that.
If the next year looks anything like the last six months, I do not feel bullish about EA being a relevant (and positive) cultural force in 2033. I hate to say that, but I think it’s important for us to be clear-eyed about the current status of the movement—and its likely trajectory—in figuring out how to move forward.
Sometimes when playing chess, it becomes clear you can’t win, and your goal shifts from winning to avoiding a loss. So when you say “we can’t afford major schisms,” my reaction is that we may not be in a place where we can afford the best option (i.e., not schisming), or to put this in more EA terms, sometimes the most cost-effective interventions are unaffordable.
Since reading this comment, I’ve been thinking about what it would look like for EA to be dying. After all, billions of dollars are committed to EA, many people consider themselves to be EAs, and there are lots of organizations aligned with the movement. Given that, how could EA die? To me, EA dying might look like: (1) limited new funding being committed to EA (or funding that was committed disappearing), (2) the number of people who identify as EAs decreasing, and (3) EA organizations failing. I think we have some evidence for 3; from conversations with people, I am guessing we’ll start to see (2); and I’m worried that EA is going to have an increasingly hard time finding new funding (plus the demise of FTX alone constitutes (1)). So I’m really worried that EA (as we know it) is dying.
To perhaps bend this metaphor to its breaking point, unless you think EA definitely isn’t dying, it’s still sensible to have an advanced directive and organ donation plan in place. In other words, I think it’s worth considering what a productive schism would look like—and what the likely trajectory of EA sans-schism is—before we rule out the “divide and conquer” approach, even if schisming is an outcome we could ideally avoid.
One thing I remain steadfastly optimistic about is the creativity, brilliance, and motivation of EAs. People in this community really want to improve the world, and I believe we can, but we should take a really hard look at whether our current approach—one of being unified under the EA umbrella—will be the best one going forward.
Just to add a note of optimism: a) people always take recent news too seriously; and b) many people don’t read the forum. It’s easy to think that everything is gloom if you spend too much time reading the drama on the forum, but most of reality hasn’t changed. We still have thousands of people deeply engaged in doing good and their projects are still going as well as they were before. There are problems, sure, but announcing death is extremely premature IMO.
I appreciate your point, but this isn’t consistent with my experience. I find that the Forum seems to be more bullish on EA than both EAs and non-EAs I talk to elsewhere/privately.
[Edit: If you feel like it, I’d also appreciate a response to my substantive points. Is it that:
(1) Your framework for what it’d look like for EA to be dying is different from mine?
(2) You accept my framework, but don’t think EA currently meets the criteria I’ve delineated?
And, separately, do you disagree with my point that even if EA dying is unlikely, we should still make a contingency plan?]
I think finding out the true state of play here is really important. What signs would we look for a sign of EA movements health that follow the 3 stages you suggested above? Perhaps the rate of sign-ups to the GWWC pledge, or total EAG applications, or people signing up to EA virtual courses? Funding might be easier to track, but the numbers are always going to be skewed by Open Philanthropy, and I don’t think that Dustin and Cari are going to go anywhere soon (which might update you slightly toward EA robustness?).
I guess there might be more failure modes than EA ‘collapse’, though we ought to watch out for it. This could be a bit of a retrenchment for the movement, where hopefully we can learn from our mistakes, improve institutions, and keep doing good in 2023 and beyond.
I’d suggest unrelenting, near-uniform public hatred as a potential failure mode (which != having many enemies or being merely unpopular). Some degree of other actors being willing to cooperate can be awfully important to effectiveness.
I don’t agree with any of your criteria for “death”. All of those sound totally survivable. “EA exits its recent high-growth phase” is very different from dying.
I would modify them to:
Significant year-on-year decreases in funding
Significant year-on-year decreases in self-identifying EAs
i.e. we transition to a negative growth regime and stay there.
And I think we could survive a lot of organizational collapse so I wouldn’t even include that.