Thank you for this post. This is a really fascinating discussion. I’m not entirely sure which “side” I end up on (or, of course, maybe there’s another name that would be better than both that hasn’t been proposed). At first I wasn’t sure, but I might agree that GP sounds more arrogant than EA. Or at least they’re both pretty close.
Honestly, this whole debate—and similar recent ones— has made me very confused about what EA is at the moment. I look back to the pitch that I gave my college roommate about doing more good by being thoughtful and deliberative about charities and I wonder how much longer that will be (should be, can be) the EA (GP?) pitch. I wonder how I would’ve reacted to a GP pitch about researching and engaging in ostensible global priorities over the “you can help a lot of people and isn’t that good” pitch.
I think EA sometimes tries to have it all. Like, it wants to be everything and to be compatible with all (or most) worldviews. But it seems to me that if you want to be an “international social movement” then you probably can’t be Global Priorities, because that (I would argue) is pretty arrogant and exclusive. However, if you want to have more of a research/prioritization focus and less on things like individual donors, well, then Effective Altruism might not cut it either.
So, what is EA? Is it about donating? Going vegan? Getting an impactful job? Doing high-level research into cause X? Is it movement focused or is it research focused?
My intuition is that you can’t be all of this. Or, at the very least, we don’t have the bandwidth for all of this.
I’m very confused about this, does anyone have a way to resolve this at least a little?
I think it can be all of this, and much more. EA can have tremendous capacity for issuing broad recommendations and tailored advice to individual people. It can be about philosophy, governance, technology, and lifestyle.
How could we have a movement for effective altruism if we couldn’t encompass all that?
This is a community, not a think tank, and a movement rather than an institution. It goes beyond any one thing. So to join it or explain it—that’s a little like explaining what America is all about, or Catholicism is all about, or science is all about. You don’t just explain it, you live it, and the journey will look different to different people. That’s a feature, not a bug.
Thanks for this response! This is helpful, but I still have uncertainties.
Take conferences as an example. Conferences can only be about so much, obviously given their limited time and bandwidth. Should we expect that EA conferences in the next ten years (let’s say) will have all of these things? That Session A will be about how veganism is necessary (or unnecessary) and that Session B will be about how it only makes sense to focus on the longterm?
I think it seems possible that you’re right, but also EA is still very young and has already changed a lot in its short time on Earth. So, I think it’s reasonable to assume that it will continue to change, and I think we can’t easily say that it will or won’t change in a way that becomes far less interested in lifestyle issues and far more interested in really big, cerebral questions about the future, cause x, and so on. Anecdotally, I think it’s fair to notice that EA is moving in this direction a bit already. Why would we think that it won’t continue to? The proportion of EA that is interested in lifestyle vs metaethics vs whatever else is not destined to be the same proportion forever, right? And therefore the content of the movement will change.
Some of this disagreement might come down to the earlier forum debate of EA as a question vs an ideology. I view it as an ideology and very much not as something that you live in the way that you describe. But that strikes me as an agree to disagree-type situation.
Thank you for this post. This is a really fascinating discussion. I’m not entirely sure which “side” I end up on (or, of course, maybe there’s another name that would be better than both that hasn’t been proposed). At first I wasn’t sure, but I might agree that GP sounds more arrogant than EA. Or at least they’re both pretty close.
Honestly, this whole debate—and similar recent ones— has made me very confused about what EA is at the moment. I look back to the pitch that I gave my college roommate about doing more good by being thoughtful and deliberative about charities and I wonder how much longer that will be (should be, can be) the EA (GP?) pitch. I wonder how I would’ve reacted to a GP pitch about researching and engaging in ostensible global priorities over the “you can help a lot of people and isn’t that good” pitch.
I think EA sometimes tries to have it all. Like, it wants to be everything and to be compatible with all (or most) worldviews. But it seems to me that if you want to be an “international social movement” then you probably can’t be Global Priorities, because that (I would argue) is pretty arrogant and exclusive. However, if you want to have more of a research/prioritization focus and less on things like individual donors, well, then Effective Altruism might not cut it either.
So, what is EA? Is it about donating? Going vegan? Getting an impactful job? Doing high-level research into cause X? Is it movement focused or is it research focused?
My intuition is that you can’t be all of this. Or, at the very least, we don’t have the bandwidth for all of this.
I’m very confused about this, does anyone have a way to resolve this at least a little?
I think it can be all of this, and much more. EA can have tremendous capacity for issuing broad recommendations and tailored advice to individual people. It can be about philosophy, governance, technology, and lifestyle.
How could we have a movement for effective altruism if we couldn’t encompass all that?
This is a community, not a think tank, and a movement rather than an institution. It goes beyond any one thing. So to join it or explain it—that’s a little like explaining what America is all about, or Catholicism is all about, or science is all about. You don’t just explain it, you live it, and the journey will look different to different people. That’s a feature, not a bug.
Thanks for this response! This is helpful, but I still have uncertainties.
Take conferences as an example. Conferences can only be about so much, obviously given their limited time and bandwidth. Should we expect that EA conferences in the next ten years (let’s say) will have all of these things? That Session A will be about how veganism is necessary (or unnecessary) and that Session B will be about how it only makes sense to focus on the longterm?
I think it seems possible that you’re right, but also EA is still very young and has already changed a lot in its short time on Earth. So, I think it’s reasonable to assume that it will continue to change, and I think we can’t easily say that it will or won’t change in a way that becomes far less interested in lifestyle issues and far more interested in really big, cerebral questions about the future, cause x, and so on. Anecdotally, I think it’s fair to notice that EA is moving in this direction a bit already. Why would we think that it won’t continue to? The proportion of EA that is interested in lifestyle vs metaethics vs whatever else is not destined to be the same proportion forever, right? And therefore the content of the movement will change.
Some of this disagreement might come down to the earlier forum debate of EA as a question vs an ideology. I view it as an ideology and very much not as something that you live in the way that you describe. But that strikes me as an agree to disagree-type situation.