Re: attack surface in my early comment, I actually meant attacks from EAs. People want to debate the borders, quite understandably. I have folks in my DMs as well as in the comments. Q: “Why did we not communicate more thoroughly on the forum” A: “Because we’ve communicated on the forum before”
I don’t think endorse vs. not endorse describes everything here, but it describes some if it. I do think I spend some energy on ~every cause area, and if I am lacking conviction, that is a harder expenditure from a resource I consider finite.
An example of a non-monetary cost where I have conviction: anxiety about potential retribution from our national political work. This is arguably not even EA (and not new), but it is a stressful side hustle we have this year. I had hoped it wouldn’t be a recurring thing, but here we are.
An example of a non-monetary cost where I have less conviction: the opportunity cost of funding insect welfare instead of chicken, cow, or pig welfare. I think I could be convinced, but I haven’t been yet and I’ve been thinking about it a long time! I’d much prefer to just see someone who actually feels strongly about that take the wheel. It is not a lot of $s in itself, but it keeps building, and there are an increasing number of smaller FAW areas like this.
I failed to forecast this issue for myself well when we were in an expansionary mindset, and I found that the further we went, the more each area on the margin had some element of this problem. I deferred for a really long time, until it became too much. Concurrently, I saw the movement becoming less and less appealing to other funders, and I believe these are related issues.
Re: attack surface in my early comment, I actually meant attacks from EAs. People want to debate the borders, quite understandably. I have folks in my DMs as well as in the comments. Q: “Why did we not communicate more thoroughly on the forum”
A: “Because we’ve communicated on the forum before”
I don’t think endorse vs. not endorse describes everything here, but it describes some if it. I do think I spend some energy on ~every cause area, and if I am lacking conviction, that is a harder expenditure from a resource I consider finite.
An example of a non-monetary cost where I have conviction: anxiety about potential retribution from our national political work. This is arguably not even EA (and not new), but it is a stressful side hustle we have this year. I had hoped it wouldn’t be a recurring thing, but here we are.
An example of a non-monetary cost where I have less conviction: the opportunity cost of funding insect welfare instead of chicken, cow, or pig welfare. I think I could be convinced, but I haven’t been yet and I’ve been thinking about it a long time! I’d much prefer to just see someone who actually feels strongly about that take the wheel. It is not a lot of $s in itself, but it keeps building, and there are an increasing number of smaller FAW areas like this.
I failed to forecast this issue for myself well when we were in an expansionary mindset, and I found that the further we went, the more each area on the margin had some element of this problem. I deferred for a really long time, until it became too much. Concurrently, I saw the movement becoming less and less appealing to other funders, and I believe these are related issues.