JWS 🔸 comments on Ozzie Gooen’s Quick takes

[JWS 🔸]

I think this is downstream of a lot of confusion about what ‘Effective Altruism’ really means, and I realise I don’t have a good definition any more. In fact, because all of the below can be criticised, it sort of explains why EA gets seemingly infinite criticism from all directions.

• Is it explicit self-identification?

• Is it explicit membership in a community?

• Is it implicit membership in a community?

• Is it if you get funded by OpenPhilanthropy?

• Is it if you are interested or working in some particular field that is deemed “effective”?

• Is it if you believe in totalising utilitarianism with no limits?

• To always justify your actions with quantitative cost-effectiveness analyses where you’re chosen course of actions is the top ranked one?

• Is it if you behave a certain way?

Because in many ways I don’t count as EA based off the above. I certainly feel less like one than I have in a long time.

For example:

I think a lot of EAs assume that OP shares a lot of the same beliefs they do.

I don’t know if this refers to some gestalt ‘belief’ than OP might have, or Dustin’s beliefs, or some kind of ‘intentional stance’ regarding OP’s actions. While many EAs shared some beliefs (I guess) there’s also a whole range of variance within EA itself, and the fundamental issue is that I don’t know if there’s something which can bind it all together.

I guess I think the question should be less “public clarification on the relationship between effective altruism and Open Philanthropy” and more “what does ‘Effective Altruism’ mean in 2025?”