My notes on what I liked about the post, from the announcement:
“What could kill effective altruism?”
This is a tricky question to answer, especially on a public forum about effective altruism, but the author handles a controversial subject with remarkable grace (and, in my view, correctly identifies the scenarios most worth worrying about).
Points I appreciated about this post:
It opens with a summary of points to come, which welcomes readers into a long post and allows for easy excerpting and sharing.
It doesn’t single out particular people or organizations for blame. Sometimes, that might be necessary for a post, but it also drives people to take sides and endangers the quality of the ensuing conversation. EA belongs to all of us, and I like a framing that presents risks to EA as problems we can all work on, rather than problems that must be solved by a few specific people.
It concludes with a reminder of why it is important that effective altruism not die. Posts about flaws or weaknesses in a movement (or almost anything) can sometimes linger as a feeling that it isn’t worth saving; instead, something that stuck with me is the term “precious cargo” to describe our collection of ideas worth preserving.
This post was awarded an EA Forum Prize; see the prize announcement for more details.
My notes on what I liked about the post, from the announcement: