Iâm glad you mustered the courage to post this! I think itâs a great post.
I agree that, in practice, people advocating for effective altruism can implicitly argue for the set of popular EA causes (and they do this quite often?), which could repel people with useful insight. Additionally, it seems to be the case that people in the EA community can be dismissive of newcomersâ cause prioritization (or their arguments for causes that are less popular in EA). Again, this could repel people from EA.
I have a couple of hypotheses for these observations. (I donât think either is a sufficient explanation, but theyâre both plausibly contributing factors.)
First, people might feel compelled to make EA less âabstractâ by trying to provide concrete examples of how people in the EA community are âtrying to do the most good they can,â possibly giving the impression that the causes, instead of the principles, are most characteristic of EA.
Second, people may be more subconsciously dismissive of new cause proposals because theyâve invested time/âmoney into causes that are currently popular in the EA community. Itâs psychologically easier to reject a new cause prioritization proposal than it is to accept it and thereby feel as though your resources have not been used with optimal effectiveness.
Thanks for those insights ! I had not really thought about âwhyâ the situation might be as it is, focused on the question on âwhatâ it entails. Iâm really glad I posted, I feel like I feel like my understanding of the topic has progressed as much in 24 hours as it had since the beginning.
Iâm glad you mustered the courage to post this! I think itâs a great post.
I agree that, in practice, people advocating for effective altruism can implicitly argue for the set of popular EA causes (and they do this quite often?), which could repel people with useful insight. Additionally, it seems to be the case that people in the EA community can be dismissive of newcomersâ cause prioritization (or their arguments for causes that are less popular in EA). Again, this could repel people from EA.
I have a couple of hypotheses for these observations. (I donât think either is a sufficient explanation, but theyâre both plausibly contributing factors.)
First, people might feel compelled to make EA less âabstractâ by trying to provide concrete examples of how people in the EA community are âtrying to do the most good they can,â possibly giving the impression that the causes, instead of the principles, are most characteristic of EA.
Second, people may be more subconsciously dismissive of new cause proposals because theyâve invested time/âmoney into causes that are currently popular in the EA community. Itâs psychologically easier to reject a new cause prioritization proposal than it is to accept it and thereby feel as though your resources have not been used with optimal effectiveness.
Thanks for those insights ! I had not really thought about âwhyâ the situation might be as it is, focused on the question on âwhatâ it entails. Iâm really glad I posted, I feel like I feel like my understanding of the topic has progressed as much in 24 hours as it had since the beginning.