EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular) “Entertainment for EAs” by Toby Tremlett🔹
Oct 24, 2025
Toby Tremlett, a writer and contributor to the Effective Altruism Forum, dives deep into the concept of "entertainment for EAs." He unpacks the failure modes in meta-EA work, emphasizing the need to focus on ultimate beneficiaries rather than just the EA community. Toby highlights how projects can receive positive feedback yet fail to impact the real stakeholders—humans, animals, or digital minds. He offers a practical detector for this issue, encouraging accountability in prioritizing genuine effectiveness over community-centric projects.
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Focus On Distant Beneficiaries
- Meta-EA work's true stakeholders are distant beneficiaries like minds, animals, and future digital agents.
- Treating the immediate EA community as the primary stakeholder risks misaligned priorities and lost impact.
Guard Against Local Praise
- Beneficiaries aren't present, so you must actively maintain focus on impact rather than local praise.
- When focus slips, projects can become 'entertainment for EAs' that please the community but hazily affect beneficiaries.
Be Skeptical Of Community-Focused Projects
- Approach projects that primarily benefit the EA community with initial scepticism.
- Evaluate whether a theory of change routes impact to ultimate beneficiaries rather than just improving EA makers' lives.