Interesting introduction! I have a couple of first impressions that I’d like to share:
The beginning of the article seems strange to me. This is the first time I have seen “Effective Altruism” defined as “a project”. To me, “a project” seems to have the connotation of something happening within a specific organization, rather than an idea, question, ideology, philosophy, or social movement. I think Effective Altruism is not a project. Rather, it contains hundreds or thousands of projects. I think there might be a better concept to encompass the idea.
I find it weird to put “What are some examples of effective altruism in practice?” before outlining the ideas in “What values unite effective altruism?”. Although it might be more boring, I think our cause areas are better understood once we outline our core philosophy. Also, we try to be cause neutral, so our projects might change radically in the future.
On a more positive note, I like the bar charts! They’re very illuminating regarding the magnitude of the issues. :)
Yeah I’d like to understand point 1 better too. Why ‘project’ rather than ‘movement’ or ‘community’? I assume a lot of thought was put into it so I’m curious to know what the explanation is!
Personally, point two makes sense to me. “What does EA do?” is a question most outsiders are interested in, and I like that the explanations come with the EA reasoning behind it so it doesn’t look like EA is specifically about the mentioned issue.
Interesting introduction! I have a couple of first impressions that I’d like to share:
The beginning of the article seems strange to me. This is the first time I have seen “Effective Altruism” defined as “a project”. To me, “a project” seems to have the connotation of something happening within a specific organization, rather than an idea, question, ideology, philosophy, or social movement. I think Effective Altruism is not a project. Rather, it contains hundreds or thousands of projects. I think there might be a better concept to encompass the idea.
I find it weird to put “What are some examples of effective altruism in practice?” before outlining the ideas in “What values unite effective altruism?”. Although it might be more boring, I think our cause areas are better understood once we outline our core philosophy. Also, we try to be cause neutral, so our projects might change radically in the future.
On a more positive note, I like the bar charts! They’re very illuminating regarding the magnitude of the issues. :)
Yeah I’d like to understand point 1 better too. Why ‘project’ rather than ‘movement’ or ‘community’? I assume a lot of thought was put into it so I’m curious to know what the explanation is!
Personally, point two makes sense to me. “What does EA do?” is a question most outsiders are interested in, and I like that the explanations come with the EA reasoning behind it so it doesn’t look like EA is specifically about the mentioned issue.
I came back to this post specifically to ask the same question as your point 1. - why “project” was used? I’d love hear to hear the reasoning!