I’m currently a co-director at EA Netherlands (with Marieke de Visscher). We’re working to build and strengthen the EA community here.
Before this, I worked as a consultant on urban socioeconomic development projects and programmes funded by the EU. Before that, I studied liberal arts (in the UK) and then philosophy (in the Netherlands).
Hit me up if you wanna find out about the Dutch EA community! :)
Thanks for putting in the work here!
You mention that feedback from people who didn’t know much about EA prior to reading the essay would be particularly valuable—we paid someone to translate it for our national group’s website so we’ve got a bit of that:
‘In the English source text I’ve noticed some minor issues with grammar and/or style (such as pronouns without referents, long-winded lines that could be phrased more efficiently, repetitions in words and examples, the structuring of content and their respective paragraphs).’
Furthermore, the translator was not a fan of the general structure:
‘The title is “What is effective altruism”, then after the intro I’m being presented with all these long examples of things more or less inspired by EA (though never quite sure to what extent), only to be followed with the line: “Effective altruism isn’t defined by the projects above, and what it focuses on could easily change.”—so why did I spend my time reading these examples then?’
After receiving these comments, I shared the old one with them to see what they made of it:
’It’s a better read and keeps me more engaged, addresses some of the key questions one might have about EA-thinking both more directly and more nuanced’
Hope this is useful!
I’m not sure you’ve quite nailed the central claim of the book. Which is fair, they don’t make it clear, and I don’t think the reviews did a good job of making it clear either.
I think it’s more along the lines of:
Modern societies have lost the qualities of flexibility and political creativity that were once more common in human history. We have value lock in.
This seems plausible to me.
They also make the following claim:
Western civilisation is not conducive to human flourishing. This is made evident by the fact that Western civilisation did not spread of its own accord. Instead, European powers ‘have been obliged to spend the last 500 or so years aiming guns at people’s heads in order to force them to adopt it’.
This is more debatable. But I don’t think it’s very important (with regards to a discussion on the value of the book).
Why? Because they only state this claim due to the fact that this is why they care about the truth of the first claim. However, I expect most people on this forum already agree that value lock in is bad and, therefore, don’t need to buy this second claim to find value in the book.
Instead, to determine the value of the book (provided you already buy the first claim AND think lock in is bad), one ought to investigate claims such as the following (made in the conclusion):
Our society’s lack of flexibility and political creativity has its origins in a confusion between care and domination.
Societies such as ours, i.e. those that are large and complex, do not require domination to flourish.
Wait, it’s a small thing, but I think I have a different understanding of decoupling (even though my understanding is ultimately drawn from the Nerst post that’s linked to in your definitional link); consequently, I’m not 100% sure what you mean when you say a common critique was ‘stop decoupling everything’.
You define the antonym of decoupling as the truism that ‘all causes are connected’. This implies that a common critique was that, too often, EA takes causes that are interconnected, separates them and, as a result, undermines its efforts to make progress.
I can imagine this would be a common critique. However, my definition of the antonym is quite different.
I would describe the antonym of decoupling to be a lack of separating an idea from its possible implications.
For example, a low-decoupler is someone who is weirded out by someone who says, ‘I don’t think we should kill healthy people and harvest their organs, but it is plausible that a survival lottery, where random people are killed and their organs redistributed, could effectively promote longevity and well-being’. A low-decoupler would be like, ‘Whoa mate, I don’t care how much you say you don’t endorse the implications of your logic, the fact you think this way suggests an unhealthy lack of an empathy and I don’t think I can trust you’.
Are you saying that lots of critiques came from that angle? Or are you saying that lots of critiques were of the flavour, ‘Too often, EA takes causes that are interconnected, separates them and, as a result, undermines its efforts to make progress’?
Like I said, it’s a minor thing, but I just wanted to get it clear in my head :)
Thanks for the post!
Thanks for the clarification!
Nice post! Like other have said in the comments, it’s hard to come up with concrete takeaways. Personally, I’m going to spend more time with the very few quakers I know just to learn more about their general vibe.
Thanks for always sharing your reports like this! Super helpful :)
I’ve found this resource from IDinsight suuuuper helpful, and I think it’s approximately what you’re looking for?
Yup! Basically structuring all of our M&E work around it. So far have mostly used it to help with our ToC and a recent needs assessment of our subgroup organisers. Lynn from EA UK showed me it, so all credit to her :)
Rutger Bregman has just written a very nice story on how Rob Mather came to found AMF! Apart from a GWWC interview, I think this is the first time anyone has told this tale in detail. There are a few good lessons in there if you’re looking to start a high-impact org.
It’s in Dutch, but google translate works very well!
Thanks for the update! I agree with Nathan that this deserves its own post.
Re your last point, I always saw SBF/FTX (when things were going well) as a success story relating to E2G/billionaire philanthropy/maximisation/hardcore utilitarianism/risk-taking/etc. I feel these are the factors that make SBF’s case distinctive, and the connection to community building is more tenuous.
This being the case, the whole thing has updated me away from those things, but it hasn’t really updated my view on community building (other than that we should be doing things more in line with Ord’s opening address at EAG Bay Area).
I’m surprised you see things differently and would be interested in hearing why that is :)
Maybe I’m just biased because I’m a professional community builder!
Thanks! Lately I’ve also thinking about concepts such as network capital or social capital. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about Chetty’s work on social capital and economic mobility. I think this could be useful to help us think about ‘impact-mobility’.
What is impact mobility? If economic mobility is the ability of an individual to improve their economic status (usually measured in income); then impact-mobility is the ability of an individual to improve their impact-status (perhaps measured in QALYs achieved or whatever). Presumably, we want our EA communities to have high impact-mobility.
How might we increase impact-mobility?
According to Chetty’s research, the share of high socioeconomic status friends among individuals with low socioeconomic status (SES) is among the strongest predictors of upward income mobility identified to date. His team terms this ‘economic connectedness’.
I think something similar could be said of the EA community. The share of high impact-status friends among individuals with low-impact status could be one of the strongest predictors of upward impact-mobility. This could be referred to as ‘impact-connectedness’.
In a companion paper, Chetty’s team analyse the determinants of economic connectedness.
They show that about half of the social disconnection across socioeconomic lines —measured as the difference in the share of high-SES friends between people with low and high SES—is explained by differences in exposure to people with high SES in groups such as schools and religious organisations.
The other half is explained by friending bias—the tendency for people with low SES to befriend people with high SES at lower rates even conditional on exposure. Friending bias is shaped by the structure of the groups in which people interact. For example, friending bias is higher in larger and more diverse groups and lower in religious organizations than in schools and workplaces.
So, transferring this to EA, we might want to build communities that expose low impact-status individuals to high impact-status individuals (inter-status exposure), and do it in such a way that friending bias is low. This would result in an EA community with high impact-connectedness, and thus high impact-mobility.
How might we increase inter-status exposure and decrease friending bias?
We can look at what increases economic connectedness to help us think about what might increase impact-connectedness.
Regarding inter-status exposure (the socioeconomic composition of the groups to which people belong), Chetty et al cite several policy efforts we might look at: busing programmes aimed at integrating schools; zoning and affordable housing policies aimed at integrating neighbourhoods; and college admissions reforms to boost diversity on campuses. What might the EA equivalents be?
Regarding friending bias (the rate at which cross-SES friendships are formed conditional on exposure), interventions have been studied less frequently. However, Chetty et al do suggest this is shaped by social structures and institutions and can therefore be influenced by policy changes. They list several examples.
Changes in group size and tracking: Berkeley High School (BHS) tackled within-school segregation and friending bias by assigning students to small, intentionally diverse ‘houses’ or ‘hives’ in the ninth grade. This approach focuses on the way students are tracked and the size of their groups to encourage more inclusive interactions.
New domains for interaction: Programs and venues promoting cross-SES interactions can help reduce friending bias. An example is the Boston gym Inner City Weightlifting, which recruits personal trainers from lower-SES backgrounds to coach affluent clients. This approach flips power dynamics, bridges social capital, and fosters genuine inclusion. Peer mentoring programs and internship opportunities can also contribute to reducing friending bias.
Restructuring of space and urban planning: Lake Highlands High School in Texas identified its building architecture as a barrier to cross-SES interaction. A large-scale construction project created a single cafeteria and more spaces for all students to interact, encouraging encounters between students from different social groups. Architecture and urban planning can play a role in reducing friending bias outside schools through social infrastructure, public parks, and public transit.
What might the EA equivalents be here?
Thanks for highlighting possible similarities between mechanisms, that’s an important part I forgot to cover!
Another inter-status exposure intervention I quite like is the use of EA co-working spaces. I only have vibes to back this up, but I think this is where a lot of the value of our Amsterdam space lies.
That’s an interesting point about the relationship between network cohesiveness and longevity of engagement with EA, intuitively it feels right.
Great name, instantly makes me want to share it with others!
Just to add another data point to this discussion. After I saw this post I added these questions to the EA Netherlands intro fellowship application form. Since then we’ve had 110 people apply:
expansive altruism (M = 5.6, SD = 0.9)
effectiveness-focus (M = 5.2, SD = 1.0)
61% female
36% male
3% non-binary
51% scored 5 and above on both scales:
63% female
36% male
2% non-binary
15% scored 6 and above on both scales:
41% female
59% male
0% non-binary
Thanks!
I wish I could claim credit for the endorsements EA has received from Rutger Bregman but much of it happened before my time and he mostly just followed his own curiosity anyway. It’s not like he was persuaded to endorse, he just thought it was a good idea.
The only maybe helpful anecdote I can provide is as follows. Before Bregman had spoken much about EA in public, one of our uni organisers slid him a cheeky DM: “Hey, fancy doing an event with us?” and, to his surprise, he agreed. Despite being relatively new to EA organising, said organiser proceeded to double down and book a 500-person lecture hall. They then worked together with other uni group organisers to sell out the venue and put on a very successful event.
The takeaways: don’t be afraid of cheeky DMs, aim high, and work with others.
Suuuuuper useful, thanks very much for pulling all of this together!
Just a quick comment to say this was a very helpful post, thank you Brian!
The most useful aspect for me was seeing how people’s engagement increased over time. My big takeaway is the importance of fellowships/discussion groups. Looking at these case studies, once someone has heard of EA, the next big moment is participation in such an activity. Would you agree?