I fully agree with you on that, and from my humble experience, it’s rare for people in EA to be interested in doing good purely from a cold and calculated point of view. A lot of us probably had the will to do good much earlier in life and long before we got to EA, and for us Effective Altruism is just the way in which we follow our ever-existing passion to do good.
I also think we should make sure people who stumble upon us don’t get the idea that we’re not doing this because we’re passionate about it. That can and does alienate a pretty substantial amount of people that discover EA, from my own anecdotal experiences with friends and newer community members.
Highlighting content that talks about motivation and excitement, and presenting it to people who are new to EA, might help us to: 1. Prevent people from feeling disconnected from our mission. 2. Be more appealing to people who have a strong desire to do good but are not very analytical or comfortable with the type of content we usually highlight. After we appeal to their emotion and establish common ground—we’re all hopeful and excited to do good—then we can start talking about the HOW.
I fully agree with you on that, and from my humble experience, it’s rare for people in EA to be interested in doing good purely from a cold and calculated point of view. A lot of us probably had the will to do good much earlier in life and long before we got to EA, and for us Effective Altruism is just the way in which we follow our ever-existing passion to do good.
I also think we should make sure people who stumble upon us don’t get the idea that we’re not doing this because we’re passionate about it. That can and does alienate a pretty substantial amount of people that discover EA, from my own anecdotal experiences with friends and newer community members.
Highlighting content that talks about motivation and excitement, and presenting it to people who are new to EA, might help us to:
1. Prevent people from feeling disconnected from our mission.
2. Be more appealing to people who have a strong desire to do good but are not very analytical or comfortable with the type of content we usually highlight. After we appeal to their emotion and establish common ground—we’re all hopeful and excited to do good—then we can start talking about the HOW.