I would be really pleased to see a drive for greater effectiveness within specific domains. At the same time, it isn’t clear that Effective Altruism as a movement should get involved in this push, as opposed to individual Effective Altruists.
Firstly, while weakening our commitment to cause neutrality would almost certainly lead to growth in the short-term, it could prove devastating in the longer term because a community needs shared values to bind it together. Although we would still have domain-specific effectiveness a shared value, I fear that this will be insufficient as the person who is concerned with existential risk will not feel that the person who is only passionate about the arts is “like them”. People who are passionate about the arts and want to support the arts can already join the community, it is just that if they truly want to be part of the community, then they should be supporting Effective Altruist causes as well, just as you can’t become an artist just by hanging around artists, you have to occasionally make things.
People who are passionate about the arts and want to support the arts can already join the community, it is just that if they truly want to be part of the community, then they should be supporting Effective Altruist causes as well, just as you can’t become an artist just by hanging around artists, you have to occasionally make things.
I think this is reasonable. I guess the way I would put it is this. We need people in the effective altruist community who can serve as bridges between EA and domains, to help make those domains more effective. The people who are serving that bridge function should really understand EA and buy into its core concepts, including the basic logic of cause neutrality. That said, the people they’re bridging to, in the domains, don’t necessarily need to consider themselves effective altruists or be active in the EA community in order to do effective things within their domains. They just need to be willing to work with the person who is serving as the bridge.
I would be really pleased to see a drive for greater effectiveness within specific domains. At the same time, it isn’t clear that Effective Altruism as a movement should get involved in this push, as opposed to individual Effective Altruists.
Firstly, while weakening our commitment to cause neutrality would almost certainly lead to growth in the short-term, it could prove devastating in the longer term because a community needs shared values to bind it together. Although we would still have domain-specific effectiveness a shared value, I fear that this will be insufficient as the person who is concerned with existential risk will not feel that the person who is only passionate about the arts is “like them”. People who are passionate about the arts and want to support the arts can already join the community, it is just that if they truly want to be part of the community, then they should be supporting Effective Altruist causes as well, just as you can’t become an artist just by hanging around artists, you have to occasionally make things.
I think this is reasonable. I guess the way I would put it is this. We need people in the effective altruist community who can serve as bridges between EA and domains, to help make those domains more effective. The people who are serving that bridge function should really understand EA and buy into its core concepts, including the basic logic of cause neutrality. That said, the people they’re bridging to, in the domains, don’t necessarily need to consider themselves effective altruists or be active in the EA community in order to do effective things within their domains. They just need to be willing to work with the person who is serving as the bridge.