I absolutely think we should stick to that messaging. Trying to do the the most good, rather than some good is the core of our movement. I would point out that there are also many doctors who were not discouraged and chose to change their career entirely as a result of EA. I personally know a few who ended up working on the very things you encourage!
That said we should of course be careful when discouraging interventions if we havenât looked into the details of each cost-effectiveness analysis, as itâs easy to arrive at a lower looking impact simply due to methodological differences between Givewellâs cost-effectiveness analysis and yours.
There are some medics who completely buy EA and have changed their entire career directly in line with EA philosophy
There are some medics who are looking to increase and maximise the impact of their careers, but who arenât sold on all or aspects of EA. They also may have a particular cause area preference e.g. global medical education, that isnât thought of as a high impact cause area by EAs
I think our philosophy is to work with both of these groups, rather than just (1).[1] I think the way we do that is by acknowledging that EA is fundamentally a question; we talk through EA ideology and frameworks without being prescriptive about the âanswersâ and conclusions of what people should work on.
I think that this recent summary on a post on the forum is quite helpful here
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 absolutely think we should stick to that messaging. Trying to do the the most good, rather than some good is the core of our movement. I would point out that there are also many doctors who were not discouraged and chose to change their career entirely as a result of EA. I personally know a few who ended up working on the very things you encourage!
That said we should of course be careful when discouraging interventions if we havenât looked into the details of each cost-effectiveness analysis, as itâs easy to arrive at a lower looking impact simply due to methodological differences between Givewellâs cost-effectiveness analysis and yours.
Letâs separate this out
There are some medics who completely buy EA and have changed their entire career directly in line with EA philosophy
There are some medics who are looking to increase and maximise the impact of their careers, but who arenât sold on all or aspects of EA. They also may have a particular cause area preference e.g. global medical education, that isnât thought of as a high impact cause area by EAs
I think our philosophy is to work with both of these groups, rather than just (1).[1] I think the way we do that is by acknowledging that EA is fundamentally a question; we talk through EA ideology and frameworks without being prescriptive about the âanswersâ and conclusions of what people should work on.
I think that this recent summary on a post on the forum is quite helpful here
We do fundamentally serve (1) and think this is a great group of people we shouldnt miss either!