Given that ruthlessness has downside risks, maybe we should brainstorm a number of new ideas for movement growth (assuming movement growth is, in fact, valuable) instead of jumping straight to ruthlessness?
In today’s world, people don’t care how “ethical” or “nice” you are if you are on the wrong team, and people who don’t have a team won’t be motivated to action unless you give them one.
This is a terrible incentive gradient. I would much rather we make an EA project out of changing or mitigating this incentive gradient than give in to it.
Yes, we could have a large number of people who call themselves “EAs”, and all they care about is whether you are on the right team… but would it be an EA movement worth the name?
Given that ruthlessness has downside risks, maybe we should brainstorm a number of new ideas for movement growth (assuming movement growth is, in fact, valuable) instead of jumping straight to ruthlessness?
This is a terrible incentive gradient. I would much rather we make an EA project out of changing or mitigating this incentive gradient than give in to it.
Yes, we could have a large number of people who call themselves “EAs”, and all they care about is whether you are on the right team… but would it be an EA movement worth the name?
Please read this post: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/hard-to-reverse-decisions-destroy-option-value/