I just want to note that in principle, large & weird or small & welcoming movements are both possible. 60s counterculture was a large & weird movement. Quakers are a small & welcoming movement. (If you want to be small & welcoming, I guess it helps to not advertise yourself very much.)
I think you are right that there’s a debate around whether EA should be sanitized for a mass audience (by not betting on pandemics or whatever). But e.g. this post mentions that caution around growth could be good because growth is hard to reverse, but I don’t see weirdness advocacy.
Whether effective altruism should be sanitized seems like an issue separate from how big the movement can or should grow. I’m also not sure questions of sanitization should be reduced to just either doing weird things openly, or not doing them at all. That framing ignores the possibility of how something can be changed to be less ‘weird’, like has been done with AI alignment, or, to a lesser extent, wild animal welfare. Someone could figure out how to make it so betting on pandemics or whatever can be done without it becoming a liability for the reputation of effective altruism.
I just want to note that in principle, large & weird or small & welcoming movements are both possible. 60s counterculture was a large & weird movement. Quakers are a small & welcoming movement. (If you want to be small & welcoming, I guess it helps to not advertise yourself very much.)
I think you are right that there’s a debate around whether EA should be sanitized for a mass audience (by not betting on pandemics or whatever). But e.g. this post mentions that caution around growth could be good because growth is hard to reverse, but I don’t see weirdness advocacy.
Whether effective altruism should be sanitized seems like an issue separate from how big the movement can or should grow. I’m also not sure questions of sanitization should be reduced to just either doing weird things openly, or not doing them at all. That framing ignores the possibility of how something can be changed to be less ‘weird’, like has been done with AI alignment, or, to a lesser extent, wild animal welfare. Someone could figure out how to make it so betting on pandemics or whatever can be done without it becoming a liability for the reputation of effective altruism.