Thanks Gidon—I really like this post. A few reactions:
I think “helping others” sounds like it’s exclusively about humans. I agree “doing good” is hard to picture, but part of this is out of genuine uncertainty on the human/animal trade-offs
What made prioritization really click for me was an example, I agree with you that this is the most central idea, and as a result, I think in an intro it is worth giving an example of two interventions intended to help the same target population, where one is way more effective (for me it was comparing two health interventions that both naively sounded like “good” things to do)
Thanks Oldman! I totally agree with your point on examples.
Regarding ‘helping others’ and animals—I think it’s a great question whether individuals who are interested in animal welfare and hear about EA for the first time would be put off by this expression. If it’s not the case, then I think the benefits of using ‘helping others’ are still relevant, and it’s not that ‘doing good’ would signal to these individuals that the movement also cares about animals. Nevertheless, in some contexts, I think it can be beneficial to say explicitly ‘helping other people and animals’ even though it makes this sentence a bit longer.
Anyhow, in terms of accuracy, I think that ‘others’ can refer to animals as well (though I’m not sure of that).
Thanks Gidon—I really like this post. A few reactions:
I think “helping others” sounds like it’s exclusively about humans. I agree “doing good” is hard to picture, but part of this is out of genuine uncertainty on the human/animal trade-offs
What made prioritization really click for me was an example, I agree with you that this is the most central idea, and as a result, I think in an intro it is worth giving an example of two interventions intended to help the same target population, where one is way more effective (for me it was comparing two health interventions that both naively sounded like “good” things to do)
Thanks Oldman! I totally agree with your point on examples.
Regarding ‘helping others’ and animals—I think it’s a great question whether individuals who are interested in animal welfare and hear about EA for the first time would be put off by this expression.
If it’s not the case, then I think the benefits of using ‘helping others’ are still relevant, and it’s not that ‘doing good’ would signal to these individuals that the movement also cares about animals. Nevertheless, in some contexts, I think it can be beneficial to say explicitly ‘helping other people and animals’ even though it makes this sentence a bit longer.
Anyhow, in terms of accuracy, I think that ‘others’ can refer to animals as well (though I’m not sure of that).
I’ve said “helping other beings” before. It sounds a bit odd to some people but is more accurate.