the social movement of Effective Altruism would be able to do the most good if it encouraged people to do incrementally more good instead of holding a gold standard of people dedicating their lives to the cause. Most people aren’t able to...donate most of their income due to lack of motivation, executive function, resources, or other reasons
I’m not sure of this representation of the views of Effective Altruists. Effective altruists aren’t expected to donate most of their income (whether they optimise their career for EA or not) and very few do so. And the fact that there are psychological reasons against being too self-sacrificial has been admitted and extensively discussed within EA (e.g. here, here, here, and here, and many other posts).
The notion that EA should focus more on making work on causes that aren’t identified as effective within EA more effective was discussed in this post. It’s a big question with lots of considerations. One argument against is, however, that the differences in cost-effectiveness between cause areas may be big, meaning that steering resources towards the most effective cause areas may be very important. Another is that a reduced focus on effectiveness may lead to lowered intellectual standards and general dilution of the EA message. But there are many other considerations to take into account.
I wish that the effective altruism movement was instead called altruistic rationality. I can’t think of a better term than “effective altruism” for optimizing any kind of charitable giving or volunteering that most people in developed countries participate in, but it’s difficult to integrate that with the current effective altruism community, given that trying to get people to switch cause areas up front is ineffective and makes people think poorly of the movement. I support both types of activities but the fact that altruistic rationalist activities are called effective altruism, and the fact that most causes are commonly called “non-EA causes” in this movement prevents a broader effective altruism movement from forming.
I’m not sure of this representation of the views of Effective Altruists. Effective altruists aren’t expected to donate most of their income (whether they optimise their career for EA or not) and very few do so. And the fact that there are psychological reasons against being too self-sacrificial has been admitted and extensively discussed within EA (e.g. here, here, here, and here, and many other posts).
The notion that EA should focus more on making work on causes that aren’t identified as effective within EA more effective was discussed in this post. It’s a big question with lots of considerations. One argument against is, however, that the differences in cost-effectiveness between cause areas may be big, meaning that steering resources towards the most effective cause areas may be very important. Another is that a reduced focus on effectiveness may lead to lowered intellectual standards and general dilution of the EA message. But there are many other considerations to take into account.
I wish that the effective altruism movement was instead called altruistic rationality. I can’t think of a better term than “effective altruism” for optimizing any kind of charitable giving or volunteering that most people in developed countries participate in, but it’s difficult to integrate that with the current effective altruism community, given that trying to get people to switch cause areas up front is ineffective and makes people think poorly of the movement. I support both types of activities but the fact that altruistic rationalist activities are called effective altruism, and the fact that most causes are commonly called “non-EA causes” in this movement prevents a broader effective altruism movement from forming.