The Nonlinear Library EA - Why I'm leaving by MRo
Jun 21, 2024
03:16
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Why I'm leaving, published by MRo on June 21, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
This is a story of growing apart.
I was excited when I first discovered Effective Altruism. A community that takes responsibility seriously, wants to help, and uses reason and science to do so efficiently. I saw impressive ideas and projects aimed at valuing, protecting, and improving the well-being of all living beings.
Today, years later, that excitement has faded. Certainly, the dedicated people with great projects still exist, but they've become a less visible part of a community that has undergone notable changes in pursuit of ever-better, larger projects and greater impact:
From concrete projects on optimal resource use and policy work for structural improvements, to avoiding existential risks, and finally to research projects aimed at studying the potentially enormous effects of possible technologies on hypothetical beings. This no longer appeals to me.
Now I see a community whose commendable openness to unbiased discussion of any idea is being misused by questionable actors to platform their views.
A movement increasingly struggling to remember that good, implementable ideas are often underestimated and ignored by the general public, but not every marginalized idea is automatically good. Openness is a virtue; being contrarian isn't necessarily so.
I observe a philosophy whose proponents in many places are no longer interested in concrete changes, but are competing to see whose vision of the future can claim the greatest longtermist significance.
This isn't to say I can't understand the underlying considerations. It's admirable to rigorously think about the consequences one must and can draw when taking moral responsibility seriously. It's equally valuable to become active and try to advance one's vision of the greatest possible impact.
However, I believe a movement that too often tries to increase the expected value of its actions by continuously reducing probabilities in favor of greater impact loses its soul. A movement that values community building, impact multiplying and getting funding much higher than concrete progress risks becoming an intellectual pyramid scheme.
Again, I'm aware that concrete, impactful projects and people still exist within EA. But in the public sphere accessible to me, their influence and visibility are increasingly diminishing, while indirect high-impact approaches via highly speculative expected value calculations become more prominent and dominant. This is no longer enough for me to publicly and personally stand behind the project named Effective Altruism in its current form.
I was never particularly active in the forum, and it took years before I even created an account. Nevertheless, I always felt part of this community. That's no longer the case, which is why I'll be leaving the forum. For those present here, this won't be a significant loss, as my contributions were negligible, but for me, it's an important step.
I'll continue to donate, support effective projects with concrete goals and impacts, and try to actively shape the future positively. However, I'll no longer do this under the label of Effective Altruism.
I'm still searching for a movement that embodies the ideal of committed, concrete effective (lowercase e) altruism. I hope it exists. Good luck to those here that feel the same.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
This is a story of growing apart.
I was excited when I first discovered Effective Altruism. A community that takes responsibility seriously, wants to help, and uses reason and science to do so efficiently. I saw impressive ideas and projects aimed at valuing, protecting, and improving the well-being of all living beings.
Today, years later, that excitement has faded. Certainly, the dedicated people with great projects still exist, but they've become a less visible part of a community that has undergone notable changes in pursuit of ever-better, larger projects and greater impact:
From concrete projects on optimal resource use and policy work for structural improvements, to avoiding existential risks, and finally to research projects aimed at studying the potentially enormous effects of possible technologies on hypothetical beings. This no longer appeals to me.
Now I see a community whose commendable openness to unbiased discussion of any idea is being misused by questionable actors to platform their views.
A movement increasingly struggling to remember that good, implementable ideas are often underestimated and ignored by the general public, but not every marginalized idea is automatically good. Openness is a virtue; being contrarian isn't necessarily so.
I observe a philosophy whose proponents in many places are no longer interested in concrete changes, but are competing to see whose vision of the future can claim the greatest longtermist significance.
This isn't to say I can't understand the underlying considerations. It's admirable to rigorously think about the consequences one must and can draw when taking moral responsibility seriously. It's equally valuable to become active and try to advance one's vision of the greatest possible impact.
However, I believe a movement that too often tries to increase the expected value of its actions by continuously reducing probabilities in favor of greater impact loses its soul. A movement that values community building, impact multiplying and getting funding much higher than concrete progress risks becoming an intellectual pyramid scheme.
Again, I'm aware that concrete, impactful projects and people still exist within EA. But in the public sphere accessible to me, their influence and visibility are increasingly diminishing, while indirect high-impact approaches via highly speculative expected value calculations become more prominent and dominant. This is no longer enough for me to publicly and personally stand behind the project named Effective Altruism in its current form.
I was never particularly active in the forum, and it took years before I even created an account. Nevertheless, I always felt part of this community. That's no longer the case, which is why I'll be leaving the forum. For those present here, this won't be a significant loss, as my contributions were negligible, but for me, it's an important step.
I'll continue to donate, support effective projects with concrete goals and impacts, and try to actively shape the future positively. However, I'll no longer do this under the label of Effective Altruism.
I'm still searching for a movement that embodies the ideal of committed, concrete effective (lowercase e) altruism. I hope it exists. Good luck to those here that feel the same.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org