As a brand new newcomer to EA, only a day or two, my fairly ignorant first impression is to wonder whether EA culture is too intellectual.
It could be argued that the most successful effective altruism effort in the history of Western civilization has been Christianity. (FYI, I’m not Christian) As example, in the United States Catholic Charities is the second leading provider of services to the needy, topped only by the federal government. And that’s not counting the very many Protestant charity projects.
Certainly there is an intellectual component to Christianity, but it’s hard to imagine that Christianity would have come to dominate the Western world if there wasn’t a much more accessible way to access Christianity as well.
Honestly, my fairly ignorant first impression, subject to revision at any time, is that EA will have appeal for well intended university based intellectuals, and is likely to be mostly ignored by the wider public. Is this a problem? I don’t know. But what the example of Catholic Charities might teach us is that it’s simple messages which most engage the broad public, and it’s the broad public which has most of the money, and thus most of the power to do good.
Ideally EA will, like Christianity, be presented in a great variety of forms so as to connect with a great variety of well intended people. Just as with Christianity, there can be EA scholars, and simpler EA folk who just want to be nice as well.
Hi and welcome to the community! I have a few rambly thoughts :D
As far as I know, focusing on exposing potential high-achievers to EA has been both a consequence of EA history (EA comes from academia), and explicit strategy (high-potential people would probably have more impact, so it makes sense to focus on them). This means that the community inherits a lot of norms from academia.
But I feel like there’s a lot of room for the broader version of EA that’s palatable for broader society. Giving what we can is best positioned to do this, but I think the main points to spread outside the core community are roughly:
If you donate, be thoughtful about where you donate, some orgs have much more impact than others.
You should care a little bit about all of humanity.
I think Christian charities seem really trustworthy, since everyone knows Christianity is serious about compassion.
Thank you for the welcome, and your rambly thoughts. :-)
Yea, that makes sense. Rome wasn’t built in a day as the saying goes, and EA had to start somewhere, and it’s good that it did.
Sadly, some ancient institutions such as the Catholic Church seem to have become expert at demolishing their own moral authority, so it’s good that other means of reaching towards the same charitable goals are being established. I like it that EA appears to be ( a first impression) nether religious or secular, and instead just charitable.
All that said, it seems it would be wise for EA activists to keep in mind that the Catholic Church is, in spite of all it’s troubles, still truly massive, global, and very well established in the third world where so much of the need exists. If a partnership is not already being explored, there might be an opportunity there.
As a brand new newcomer to EA, only a day or two, my fairly ignorant first impression is to wonder whether EA culture is too intellectual.
It could be argued that the most successful effective altruism effort in the history of Western civilization has been Christianity. (FYI, I’m not Christian) As example, in the United States Catholic Charities is the second leading provider of services to the needy, topped only by the federal government. And that’s not counting the very many Protestant charity projects.
Certainly there is an intellectual component to Christianity, but it’s hard to imagine that Christianity would have come to dominate the Western world if there wasn’t a much more accessible way to access Christianity as well.
Honestly, my fairly ignorant first impression, subject to revision at any time, is that EA will have appeal for well intended university based intellectuals, and is likely to be mostly ignored by the wider public. Is this a problem? I don’t know. But what the example of Catholic Charities might teach us is that it’s simple messages which most engage the broad public, and it’s the broad public which has most of the money, and thus most of the power to do good.
Ideally EA will, like Christianity, be presented in a great variety of forms so as to connect with a great variety of well intended people. Just as with Christianity, there can be EA scholars, and simpler EA folk who just want to be nice as well.
Hi and welcome to the community!
I have a few rambly thoughts :D
As far as I know, focusing on exposing potential high-achievers to EA has been both a consequence of EA history (EA comes from academia), and explicit strategy (high-potential people would probably have more impact, so it makes sense to focus on them). This means that the community inherits a lot of norms from academia.
But I feel like there’s a lot of room for the broader version of EA that’s palatable for broader society. Giving what we can is best positioned to do this, but I think the main points to spread outside the core community are roughly:
If you donate, be thoughtful about where you donate, some orgs have much more impact than others.
You should care a little bit about all of humanity.
I think Christian charities seem really trustworthy, since everyone knows Christianity is serious about compassion.
Thank you for the welcome, and your rambly thoughts. :-)
Yea, that makes sense. Rome wasn’t built in a day as the saying goes, and EA had to start somewhere, and it’s good that it did.
Sadly, some ancient institutions such as the Catholic Church seem to have become expert at demolishing their own moral authority, so it’s good that other means of reaching towards the same charitable goals are being established. I like it that EA appears to be ( a first impression) nether religious or secular, and instead just charitable.
All that said, it seems it would be wise for EA activists to keep in mind that the Catholic Church is, in spite of all it’s troubles, still truly massive, global, and very well established in the third world where so much of the need exists. If a partnership is not already being explored, there might be an opportunity there.