Many people choose to avoid engaging with the movement due to the general unspoken feeling of “you’re not doing enough unless you meet our high expectations”—in fact, one commented exactly this in response to this post.
Datapoint—I too have felt unsure whether I’m doing enough to justifiedly call myself EA. (I have both worked for and donated to MIRI, ran a birthday fundraiser for EA causes, organized an introductory EA event where I was the main speaker, and organized a few EA meetups. But my regular donations are pretty tiny and I’m not sure of how much impact the-stuff-that-I’ve-done-so-far will have in the end, so I still have occasional emotional doubts about claiming the label.)
Kaj, thank you for sharing! You totally deserve to call yourself an EA and you are indeed a datapoint indicating one of the reasons I’m writing this piece :-) Thank you for all you do and consider sharing about it on the Accomplishments thread.
Datapoint—I too have felt unsure whether I’m doing enough to justifiedly call myself EA. (I have both worked for and donated to MIRI, ran a birthday fundraiser for EA causes, organized an introductory EA event where I was the main speaker, and organized a few EA meetups. But my regular donations are pretty tiny and I’m not sure of how much impact the-stuff-that-I’ve-done-so-far will have in the end, so I still have occasional emotional doubts about claiming the label.)
Kaj, thank you for sharing! You totally deserve to call yourself an EA and you are indeed a datapoint indicating one of the reasons I’m writing this piece :-) Thank you for all you do and consider sharing about it on the Accomplishments thread.