my sense is that historically there have been many large and rapidly growing groups of people that fit the second description, and not very many of the first. I think this was true for mechanistic reasons related to how humans work rather than being accidents of history, and think that recent technological advances may even have exaggerated the effects.
I think that works for many groups, and many subfields/ârelated causes, but not for âeffective altruismâ.
To unpack this a bit, I think that âAI safetyâ or âanimal welfareâ movements could quite possibly get much bigger much more quickly than an âeffective altruismâ movement that is âcommitment to using reason and evidence to do the most good we canâ.
However, when we are selling that weâre âcommitment to using reason and evidence to do the most good we canâ and instead present people with a very narrow set of conclusions I think we do neither of these things well. Instead we put people off and we undermine our value.
I believe that the value of the EA movement comes from this commitment to using reason and evidence to do the most good we can.
People are hearing about EA. These people could become allies or members of the community and/âor our causes. However, if we present ourselves too narrowly we might not just lose them, but they might become adversaries.
Iâve seen this already. People soured on EA because if it seeming too narrow and too overconfident becoming increasingly adversarial and that hurting our overall goals of improving the world.
I think that works for many groups, and many subfields/ârelated causes, but not for âeffective altruismâ.
To unpack this a bit, I think that âAI safetyâ or âanimal welfareâ movements could quite possibly get much bigger much more quickly than an âeffective altruismâ movement that is âcommitment to using reason and evidence to do the most good we canâ.
I agree! Thatâs why Iâm surprised by the initial claim in the article, which seems to be saying that weâre more likely to be a smaller group if we become ideologically committed to certain object-level conclusions, and a larger group if we instead stay focused on having good epistemics and seeing where that takes us. It seems like the two should be flipped?
Sorry if the remainder of the comment didnât communicate this clearly enough:
I think the âbait and switchâ of EA (sell the âEA is a questionâ but seem to deliver âEA is these specific conclusionsâ) is self-limiting for our total impact. This is self-limiting because:
It limits the size of our community (put off people who see it as a bait and switch)
It limits the quality of the community (groupthink, echo chambers, overfishing small ponds etc)
We lose allies
We create enemies
Impact is a product of: size (community + allies) * quality (community + allies) - actions of enemies actively working against us.
If we decrease size and quality of community and allies while increasing the size and veracity of people working against us then we limit our impact.
I think that works for many groups, and many subfields/ârelated causes, but not for âeffective altruismâ.
To unpack this a bit, I think that âAI safetyâ or âanimal welfareâ movements could quite possibly get much bigger much more quickly than an âeffective altruismâ movement that is âcommitment to using reason and evidence to do the most good we canâ.
However, when we are selling that weâre âcommitment to using reason and evidence to do the most good we canâ and instead present people with a very narrow set of conclusions I think we do neither of these things well. Instead we put people off and we undermine our value.
I believe that the value of the EA movement comes from this commitment to using reason and evidence to do the most good we can.
People are hearing about EA. These people could become allies or members of the community and/âor our causes. However, if we present ourselves too narrowly we might not just lose them, but they might become adversaries.
Iâve seen this already. People soured on EA because if it seeming too narrow and too overconfident becoming increasingly adversarial and that hurting our overall goals of improving the world.
I agree! Thatâs why Iâm surprised by the initial claim in the article, which seems to be saying that weâre more likely to be a smaller group if we become ideologically committed to certain object-level conclusions, and a larger group if we instead stay focused on having good epistemics and seeing where that takes us. It seems like the two should be flipped?
Sorry if the remainder of the comment didnât communicate this clearly enough:
I think the âbait and switchâ of EA (sell the âEA is a questionâ but seem to deliver âEA is these specific conclusionsâ) is self-limiting for our total impact. This is self-limiting because:
It limits the size of our community (put off people who see it as a bait and switch)
It limits the quality of the community (groupthink, echo chambers, overfishing small ponds etc)
We lose allies
We create enemies
Impact is a product of: size (community + allies) * quality (community + allies) - actions of enemies actively working against us.
If we decrease size and quality of community and allies while increasing the size and veracity of people working against us then we limit our impact.
Does that help clarify?