EA is basically a group of weirdos caring about very weird, abstract things. I think that’s great and we need weird people pursuing weird passion projects, because that’s how a lot of important shit has gotten done throughout history. But I also wish there was a more mainstream version of EA.
What I have in mind here is not an EA movement trying to get John Q Donor to give money to things like AI-alignment, or animal welfare studies, or any of the generally very weird and off-putting stuff that EA often focuses on. I’d like a Main Street Friendly version that instead focused on ‘Popular Charity Inc should change to do X instead of Y’ or ‘Donate to Popular Cause A instead of Popular Cause B’, where all of the suggestions are very mainstream and easily understandable (but efficient versions of that mainstream thing).
Most people are going to get turned off by abstract calculations, anything they see as weird, etc. They just want to do some good and not think too hard about it. Improving how those people donate—not by making them optimal, but by making them moderately better—seems to be an area where lots of good could be done.
To use a food analogy—EAs are very often like people examining tens of thousands of obscure recipes, trying to identify the optimal, perfect dish. Something like beluga caviar over the world’s most expensive wagyu cooked by a Michelin chef. Normal people just select a food and cook it and eat it—here’s some mac and cheese from a box, yum. Rather than trying to recruit more weirdos in the search for the ultra-perfect dish, there should be more focus on giving normal people tips to improve their mac and cheese. That would do more to increase the average culinary level of the population (and I’d expect any successful mass appeal strategy to recruit more weirdos than a weirdo-recruiting strategy would anyways).
One thing that I do is try to convince regular people who like to donate to charity to donate some portion (a quarter to a half, depending on how receptive they are) internationally. In the US only about 6% of charitable giving goes overseas, and money donated in the developing world is usually far more impactful. I don’t try to lecture them or explain the most optimal thing to do, just nudge them in the right direction. I often use explicitly the same thing they’re already doing—if they donate to cancer stuff here, I find an effect cancer charity in a poor country. If they donate to schools here, I find a good place to fund education in the third world. It’s an easy win and I have a pretty high success rate with this.
I am not sure about the etiquette of follow up questions in AMAs, but I’ll give it a go:
Why does being mainstream matter? If, for example, s-risk is the highest priority cause to work on, and the work of a few mad scientists is what is needed to solve the problem, why worry about the general public’s perception of EA as a movement, or EA ideas? We can look at growing the movement as growing the number of top performers and game-changers, in their respective industries, who share EA values. Let the rest of us enjoy the benefit of their labor.
My point is that I think you can often a ton of good by NOT focusing on the highest priority cause.
If you constantly talk about killer AI for a year, you might get 2 people to contribute to it.
If you constantly talk about improving regular people’s regular charitable giving for a year, you might influence dozens or hundreds of people to give more efficiently, even if they’re still giving to something that isn’t the highest priority cause.
Basically—If your goal is to improve restaurant quality, improving every McDonald’s in the US by 10% does more to improve restaurant quality than opening a handful of Michelin star joints.
I wish it was more mainstream!
EA is basically a group of weirdos caring about very weird, abstract things. I think that’s great and we need weird people pursuing weird passion projects, because that’s how a lot of important shit has gotten done throughout history. But I also wish there was a more mainstream version of EA.
What I have in mind here is not an EA movement trying to get John Q Donor to give money to things like AI-alignment, or animal welfare studies, or any of the generally very weird and off-putting stuff that EA often focuses on. I’d like a Main Street Friendly version that instead focused on ‘Popular Charity Inc should change to do X instead of Y’ or ‘Donate to Popular Cause A instead of Popular Cause B’, where all of the suggestions are very mainstream and easily understandable (but efficient versions of that mainstream thing).
Most people are going to get turned off by abstract calculations, anything they see as weird, etc. They just want to do some good and not think too hard about it. Improving how those people donate—not by making them optimal, but by making them moderately better—seems to be an area where lots of good could be done.
To use a food analogy—EAs are very often like people examining tens of thousands of obscure recipes, trying to identify the optimal, perfect dish. Something like beluga caviar over the world’s most expensive wagyu cooked by a Michelin chef. Normal people just select a food and cook it and eat it—here’s some mac and cheese from a box, yum. Rather than trying to recruit more weirdos in the search for the ultra-perfect dish, there should be more focus on giving normal people tips to improve their mac and cheese. That would do more to increase the average culinary level of the population (and I’d expect any successful mass appeal strategy to recruit more weirdos than a weirdo-recruiting strategy would anyways).
One thing that I do is try to convince regular people who like to donate to charity to donate some portion (a quarter to a half, depending on how receptive they are) internationally. In the US only about 6% of charitable giving goes overseas, and money donated in the developing world is usually far more impactful. I don’t try to lecture them or explain the most optimal thing to do, just nudge them in the right direction. I often use explicitly the same thing they’re already doing—if they donate to cancer stuff here, I find an effect cancer charity in a poor country. If they donate to schools here, I find a good place to fund education in the third world. It’s an easy win and I have a pretty high success rate with this.
I am not sure about the etiquette of follow up questions in AMAs, but I’ll give it a go:
Why does being mainstream matter? If, for example, s-risk is the highest priority cause to work on, and the work of a few mad scientists is what is needed to solve the problem, why worry about the general public’s perception of EA as a movement, or EA ideas? We can look at growing the movement as growing the number of top performers and game-changers, in their respective industries, who share EA values. Let the rest of us enjoy the benefit of their labor.
My point is that I think you can often a ton of good by NOT focusing on the highest priority cause.
If you constantly talk about killer AI for a year, you might get 2 people to contribute to it.
If you constantly talk about improving regular people’s regular charitable giving for a year, you might influence dozens or hundreds of people to give more efficiently, even if they’re still giving to something that isn’t the highest priority cause.
Basically—If your goal is to improve restaurant quality, improving every McDonald’s in the US by 10% does more to improve restaurant quality than opening a handful of Michelin star joints.