Thank you, your reply appears helpful and is greatfully received. I am located in the UK rather than the USA.
I will look deeper into EA.
Rob
Karma: 25
[Question] Can you turn me into an effective altruist and do you want to?
Hi.
I am an unemployed, paranoid schizophrenic who recently started studying stoicsm, Buddhist philosophy and mindfulness and begun to sort my personal problems out. I now want to contribute to society in a meaningful way and I Googled “Effective Altruism” with a view to discovering how to best invest my time and I found you.
My initial impression was that I wanted to do something I could directly see the positive impact I had so you may not be a good fit. I have been considering helping people who are struggling with life and achieving even the basics, much as I have based on my own recent experiences but the idea of maximizing the return on investment for sentient beings on the investment I and others make appeals so, that’s where I’m at and what brought me here.
There is a lot of information on this site! Too much for me to digest right now. I’ll give you my initial reactions then perhaps read more if you seem like people I should connect with to further my dual intentions of effective contribution and living a life of satisfaction.
Sorry if this has been discussed before or falls foul of etiquette, if it does it can be edited or deleted. I wonder if any effective altruism movements ever do anything for communities on a local level in the developed world, beyond the big direct impact issues such as factory farming? I understand that resources often make a bigger difference in the developing world but if you also target neglected but noticeable things in the communities of the developed world, even if they seem trivial in scope, people who haven’t heard of you will know you exist. It could serve as a gateway to introduce people attracted to altruism to contributing in an effective way. Getting involved in a wider scope of issues may dilute the mission if managed poorly but managed correctly I wonder if it would be good PR and advertising?
That’s all for now except to offer one thing. I used to be very, very overweight, spend most of my time in bed and catch a taxi round the corner. I’m planning to run my first marathon in September. I have a paid regular entry, if I am sold on Effective Altruism I could run in aid of this cause, though I know not how much impact it would have, more than just running for myself I’m sure.
Thanks for reading.
Thank you. I didn’t want to talk about myself too much but since you referenced stability in my life, I have one major project to complete to put me in a position where I will be a capable human being ready to make an effective contribution to the lives of others who no longer needs to prioritize themselves and seek out a calling, preferably one that can provide myself a modest income too so that I can focus on it full time, but this isn’t a necessity, so now is a good time to be thinking about what I want to do and how to go about it, then I will be in a position to take action straight away.
The name is attractive in that I want to be of service in an effective way and I’m not sure what the ideals of EAs as a community are yet beyond using reason to make a difference in the most effective way. I have much to learn and I like to listen to educational material in the form of audiobooks in particular, so I will listen to one of the recommendations for reading from this website “Doing Good Better” on my long, slow run, either today or next week depending on if I can it ready in time (flat audiobook player battery, book not on Audible UK and other obstacles being present).