When I was doing a bunch of explaining of EA and my potential jobs during my most recent job search to friends, family and anyone else, one framing I landed on I found helpful was “ambitious altruism.” It let me explain why just helping one person didn’t feel like enough without coming off as a jerk (i.e. “I want to be more ambitious than that” rather than “that’s not effective”).
It doesn’t have the maximizing quality, but it doesn’t not have it either, since if there’s something more you can do with the same resources, there’s room to be more ambitious.
Ambitious Altruism
When I was doing a bunch of explaining of EA and my potential jobs during my most recent job search to friends, family and anyone else, one framing I landed on I found helpful was “ambitious altruism.” It let me explain why just helping one person didn’t feel like enough without coming off as a jerk (i.e. “I want to be more ambitious than that” rather than “that’s not effective”).
It doesn’t have the maximizing quality, but it doesn’t not have it either, since if there’s something more you can do with the same resources, there’s room to be more ambitious.