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.
I’d guess donating for warm fuzzies is generally an ineffective way to gain influence/status.
(Of course you should be friendly and not waste weirdness points.)
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.
I’d guess donating for warm fuzzies is generally an ineffective way to gain influence/status.
As a simple and costless way to start operationalizing this disagreement, I claim that if I ask my mom (not an EA, pretty opposed to the vibe) if she’d like EA better with a 2%/8% standard, she’d prefer it and say that she’d think warmly of a movement that encouraged this style of donating. I’m only sort of being facetious here—I think having accurate models about how to build reputation for the movement are important and that EAs need a way to gather evidence and update.
I disagree. In particular:
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.
I’d guess donating for warm fuzzies is generally an ineffective way to gain influence/status.
(Of course you should be friendly and not waste weirdness points.)
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.
As a simple and costless way to start operationalizing this disagreement, I claim that if I ask my mom (not an EA, pretty opposed to the vibe) if she’d like EA better with a 2%/8% standard, she’d prefer it and say that she’d think warmly of a movement that encouraged this style of donating. I’m only sort of being facetious here—I think having accurate models about how to build reputation for the movement are important and that EAs need a way to gather evidence and update.