Roughly, I think the community isn’t able (isn’t strong enough?) to both think much about how it’s perceived and think well or in-a-high-integrity-manner about how to do good, and I’d favor thinking well and in a high-integrity manner.
Just want to flag that I completely disagree with this, and that moreover I find it bewildering that in EA and rationalism this seemingly passes almost as a truism.
I think we can absolutely think both about perceptions and charitable effectiveness—their tradeoffs, how to get the most of one without sacrificing too much of the other, how they might go together—and both my post here and jenn’s post that I link to are examples of that.
People can think about competing values and priorities, and they do it all the time. I want to have fun, but I also want to make ends meet. I want to do good, but I also want to enjoy my life. I want to be liked, but I also want to be authentic. These are normal dilemmas that just about everybody deals with all the time. The people I meet in EA are mostly smart, sophisticated people, and I think that’s more than sufficient to engage in this kind of tradeoffs-and-strategy-based reasoning.
Just want to flag that I completely disagree with this, and that moreover I find it bewildering that in EA and rationalism this seemingly passes almost as a truism.
I think we can absolutely think both about perceptions and charitable effectiveness—their tradeoffs, how to get the most of one without sacrificing too much of the other, how they might go together—and both my post here and jenn’s post that I link to are examples of that.
People can think about competing values and priorities, and they do it all the time. I want to have fun, but I also want to make ends meet. I want to do good, but I also want to enjoy my life. I want to be liked, but I also want to be authentic. These are normal dilemmas that just about everybody deals with all the time. The people I meet in EA are mostly smart, sophisticated people, and I think that’s more than sufficient to engage in this kind of tradeoffs-and-strategy-based reasoning.