I’m pretty new to the EA movement and community, so please take what I have to say with a grain of salt. With that said, I really think this is the right direction. Effective Altruism is about common moral values and ethical vision, and at the end of the day this has to be our main focus. Recruitment or “winning converts” isn’t the point—a “big tent” movement without any substance behind it is of low value to the well-being of sentient life on the planet, in the short term and especially in the long. I don’t think we can afford “mission creep” right now, especially not after the FTX events.
Thanks Hayven! I’m glad you like this direction. The challenge remaining, from my perspective is how we can practically build a robust community. Particularly one that’s not directly tied to singular short-term object-level metrics[1] like lives saved or money donated or people who work in impactful jobs, without being overly inward-facing and losing track of why we’re here in the first place.
We want the community to be neither a factory nor a social club.
Because judging a community too closely on specific object-level metrics risks biasing a specific worldview, plus might be long-term unhealthy for a community.
“We want the community to be neither a factory nor a social club.”
It is not immediately needed but I would really appreciate some further elaboration of your thoughts on this topic as I reckon many people(including me) are grappling with the same problem for their work outside of EAIF.
Really late to respond to this! Just wanted to quickly say that I’ve been mulling over this question for a while and don’t have clear/coherent answers; hope other people (at EAIF and elsewhere) can comment with either more well-thought-out responses or their initial thoughts!
Agreed, and I’m not exactly sure what this looks like. I’m not comparing EA to religious ideologies, but in the past religion has been the main institution that has tried to fulfill the purpose of “robust moral community.” Maybe taking a page from some of the ways these organizations have done community building (e.g., focused talks and meetings, social events, big gatherings with talks and exhibits, personal meditation / focus on values) would be a good idea? (epistemic status—low, ~30%)
I’m pretty new to the EA movement and community, so please take what I have to say with a grain of salt. With that said, I really think this is the right direction. Effective Altruism is about common moral values and ethical vision, and at the end of the day this has to be our main focus. Recruitment or “winning converts” isn’t the point—a “big tent” movement without any substance behind it is of low value to the well-being of sentient life on the planet, in the short term and especially in the long. I don’t think we can afford “mission creep” right now, especially not after the FTX events.
Thanks Hayven! I’m glad you like this direction. The challenge remaining, from my perspective is how we can practically build a robust community. Particularly one that’s not directly tied to singular short-term object-level metrics[1] like lives saved or money donated or people who work in impactful jobs, without being overly inward-facing and losing track of why we’re here in the first place.
We want the community to be neither a factory nor a social club.
Because judging a community too closely on specific object-level metrics risks biasing a specific worldview, plus might be long-term unhealthy for a community.
“We want the community to be neither a factory nor a social club.”
It is not immediately needed but I would really appreciate some further elaboration of your thoughts on this topic as I reckon many people(including me) are grappling with the same problem for their work outside of EAIF.
Really late to respond to this! Just wanted to quickly say that I’ve been mulling over this question for a while and don’t have clear/coherent answers; hope other people (at EAIF and elsewhere) can comment with either more well-thought-out responses or their initial thoughts!
Agreed, and I’m not exactly sure what this looks like. I’m not comparing EA to religious ideologies, but in the past religion has been the main institution that has tried to fulfill the purpose of “robust moral community.” Maybe taking a page from some of the ways these organizations have done community building (e.g., focused talks and meetings, social events, big gatherings with talks and exhibits, personal meditation / focus on values) would be a good idea? (epistemic status—low, ~30%)