I think internal criticism in EA is motivated by aiming for perfection, and is not motivated by aiming to be as good as other movements / ideologies. I think internal criticism with this motivation is entirely compatible with a self-image of exceptionalism.
While I think many EAs view the movement as exceptional and I agree with them, I think too many EAs assume individual EAs will be exceptional too, which I think is an unjustified expectation. In particular, I think EAs assume that individual EAs will be exceptionally good at being virtuous and following good social rules, which is a bad assumption.
I think EA also relies too heavily on personal networks, and especially given the adjacency to the rationalist community, EA is bad at mitigating against the cognitive biases this can cause in grantmaking. I expect that people overestimate how good their friends are at being virtuous and following good social rules, and given that so many EAs are friends with each other at a personal level, this exacerbates the exceptionalism problem.
I mean, of course Effective Altruism is striving for perfection, every movement should, but this is very different than thinking that EA has already achieved perfection. I think you listed a couple of things that I had read as EA self-criticism pre-FTX collapse, suggesting that EAs were aware of some of the potential pitfalls of the movement. I just don’t think many people thought EA exceptional in the “will avoid common pitfalls of movements” perfection sense as implied by the article.
Some reasons I disagree:
I think internal criticism in EA is motivated by aiming for perfection, and is not motivated by aiming to be as good as other movements / ideologies. I think internal criticism with this motivation is entirely compatible with a self-image of exceptionalism.
While I think many EAs view the movement as exceptional and I agree with them, I think too many EAs assume individual EAs will be exceptional too, which I think is an unjustified expectation. In particular, I think EAs assume that individual EAs will be exceptionally good at being virtuous and following good social rules, which is a bad assumption.
I think EA also relies too heavily on personal networks, and especially given the adjacency to the rationalist community, EA is bad at mitigating against the cognitive biases this can cause in grantmaking. I expect that people overestimate how good their friends are at being virtuous and following good social rules, and given that so many EAs are friends with each other at a personal level, this exacerbates the exceptionalism problem.
I mean, of course Effective Altruism is striving for perfection, every movement should, but this is very different than thinking that EA has already achieved perfection. I think you listed a couple of things that I had read as EA self-criticism pre-FTX collapse, suggesting that EAs were aware of some of the potential pitfalls of the movement. I just don’t think many people thought EA exceptional in the “will avoid common pitfalls of movements” perfection sense as implied by the article.