Just noting, for people who might not read the book, that there are many more mentions of âeffective altruismâ:
I agree that EA seems often painted as âHigh IQ immature childrenâ, especially from Chapter 6 or 7.
To me, EA also seems painted as kind of a cult[1], where acolytes sacrifice their lives for âthe greater goodâ according to a weird ideology, and people seem to be considered âeffective altruistsâ mostly based on their social connections with the group.
Iâm surprised you didnât mention what was for me the spiciest EA quote, from SBF in ~2018:
This combos really badly with the current EA shitshow Iâm supposed to be, in some ways, adjudicating.
It seems somewhat irresponsible to title this post âevery mention of EA in Going Infiniteâ if it only includes a handful of the many mentions of EA in Going Infinite. Appreciate you for clarifying!
I wrote about every mention, but some were summaries rather than direct copies and pastes, which I thought was straightforward for readers.
For example when I say, âHe devotes several pages to talking about Peter Singer, Toby Ord and Will MacAskill, and the early version of 80,000 Hours Will was promoting on his visit to Harvardâ, I mean there were many mentions of effective altruism on those pages!
I also include sections of the book that talk about effective altruism without using that exact phrase.
I donât think there are any I didnât either quote or summarise, but I only read it once, so I could have missed some
Note that the author uses âthe effective altruistsâ as shorthand for âCaroline, Nishad, Gary, and Samâ. E.g. âthatâs where the effective altruists all lived, at least until Caroline booted Sam outâ is just referring to the four of them.
So I think there are fewer references to EA per se than these search results might imply.
He does, but at the same time I think it matters that he uses that shorthand rather than some other expression (say CNGS), since it makes the EA connection more salient.
Just noting, for people who might not read the book, that there are many more mentions of âeffective altruismâ:
I agree that EA seems often painted as âHigh IQ immature childrenâ, especially from Chapter 6 or 7.
To me, EA also seems painted as kind of a cult[1], where acolytes sacrifice their lives for âthe greater goodâ according to a weird ideology, and people seem to be considered âeffective altruistsâ mostly based on their social connections with the group.
Iâm surprised you didnât mention what was for me the spiciest EA quote, from SBF in ~2018:
Same way as this Washington Post article puts it
It seems somewhat irresponsible to title this post âevery mention of EA in Going Infiniteâ if it only includes a handful of the many mentions of EA in Going Infinite. Appreciate you for clarifying!
Yes, I think the title should be changed.
âA Summary of Every Mention of EA in Going Infiniteâ?
âHow EA is portrayed in Going Infiniteâ?
Yeah the latter is good.
I wrote about every mention, but some were summaries rather than direct copies and pastes, which I thought was straightforward for readers.
For example when I say, âHe devotes several pages to talking about Peter Singer, Toby Ord and Will MacAskill, and the early version of 80,000 Hours Will was promoting on his visit to Harvardâ, I mean there were many mentions of effective altruism on those pages!
I also include sections of the book that talk about effective altruism without using that exact phrase.
I donât think there are any I didnât either quote or summarise, but I only read it once, so I could have missed some
I didnât really understand that SBF quote to be honest! What was he referring toâthe conflict he caused?
Note that the author uses âthe effective altruistsâ as shorthand for âCaroline, Nishad, Gary, and Samâ. E.g. âthatâs where the effective altruists all lived, at least until Caroline booted Sam outâ is just referring to the four of them.
So I think there are fewer references to EA per se than these search results might imply.
He does, but at the same time I think it matters that he uses that shorthand rather than some other expression (say CNGS), since it makes the EA connection more salient.
Agreed, itâs just important to understand that what the author means by that term is not what most of us would mean by the term.