Food for Thought: Compassion in EA

Food for Thought is a series of events, where we discuss philosophical and practical questions of EA in small groups over food and drinks: We are exploring effective altruism one bite at a time (at the moment, it’s rather one sip at a time, until we’ve found an indoor location that allows us to bring food). EA newcomers are welcome; studying the suggested material is encouraged but not required, please RSVP.

Topic

This time we want to sit down with you and discuss compassion in effective altruism. What place does it have in our actions? While some form of compassion is probably the first step into EA for many, the logical thought processes inherent to EA can sometimes feel void of compassion. How best should we balance the value compassion has against the value of rationality? Let’s discuss this ambivalence and how compassion and rationality can benefit each other!

While we do not want to make longtermism the main topic of the discussion, we recommend the text Promoting compassionate longtermism as a starting point.

Where

Since it’s now too cold for a picnic in the park, we are going to meet at Atopia. It is easy to reach via Ringbahn (Prenzlauer Allee), M10 (Prenzlauer Allee/​Danziger Staße) or M2 (Fröbelstraße).

What to bring

Some change to buy a drink—they don’t accept card payment at Atopia.

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