Thanks for the overview! I agree with decorrelating this movement for a few reasons:
EA’s critique culture has destroyed innovation in the field and is often the reason that a potentially impactful project doesn’t exist or is super neutered. Focus on empowering each other towards moral ambition here is great.
The name Effective Altruism is very academic and unrelatable for most people discovering it for the first time. And the same is true for its community. It’s rare that the community you enter when you enter EA is action-oriented, innovative, and dynamic.
EA has indeed been hit by a few truckloads of controversy recently which is good to try to give other options for down the line.
On another note, just noticed the reference to Scandinavian EAs and wanted to give my quick take:
This varies locally, my impression is that it’s more common in the Bay Area or Oxford. Scandinavian EAs, for example, are often content doing the 5th most impactul thing they could be doing, celebrating the gains they’ve made by not just doing some random thing. This is highly anecdotal.
I think the Copenhagen EAs have consistently been chasing the most impactful thing out there but it is true that the bets have been somewhat decorrelated from other EA projects. E.g., Danes now run Upstream Policy, ControlAI’s governance, Apart Research, Snake Anti-Venom, Seldon, Screwworm Free Future, among others, all of which have ToCs that are slightly different from core EA but that I personally think are more impactful than most other projects in their category per dollar.
I’m uncertain where the “5th most impactful” thing comes from here, and I may just be under-informed about our neighbors.
Thanks for the overview! I agree with decorrelating this movement for a few reasons:
EA’s critique culture has destroyed innovation in the field and is often the reason that a potentially impactful project doesn’t exist or is super neutered. Focus on empowering each other towards moral ambition here is great.
The name Effective Altruism is very academic and unrelatable for most people discovering it for the first time. And the same is true for its community. It’s rare that the community you enter when you enter EA is action-oriented, innovative, and dynamic.
EA has indeed been hit by a few truckloads of controversy recently which is good to try to give other options for down the line.
On another note, just noticed the reference to Scandinavian EAs and wanted to give my quick take:
I think the Copenhagen EAs have consistently been chasing the most impactful thing out there but it is true that the bets have been somewhat decorrelated from other EA projects. E.g., Danes now run Upstream Policy, ControlAI’s governance, Apart Research, Snake Anti-Venom, Seldon, Screwworm Free Future, among others, all of which have ToCs that are slightly different from core EA but that I personally think are more impactful than most other projects in their category per dollar.
I’m uncertain where the “5th most impactful” thing comes from here, and I may just be under-informed about our neighbors.