I think they’re especially relevant for this section:
But possible self-defeating dynamics aren’t the only issue. Another is that pressure to justify everything can cause people to come up with justifications after the fact. What do you do if you only heard about EA six months ago, and already made some decisions beforehand? What do you do if you just didn’t think very hard about working at a random tech company rather than something “more EA”? What if you just went to the party because you wanted to?
Justifying, in these cases, is also a way to get practice… in motivated reasoning.
Thanks for posting this! I really appreciate it.
I want to highlight some relevant posts:
Aim high, even if you fall short (Julia Wise)
The motivated reasoning critique of effective altruism (Linch)
Beware surprising and suspicious convergence (Gregory Lewis)
You have more than one goal, and that’s fine (Julia Wise — you’re already linking to this post)
I think they’re especially relevant for this section: