Thanks for writing this, Stefan. I relate to a lot of what you've written and have spent much of this year reflecting on similar questions. It's interesting that you have found joy in orientating towards Truth instead of the Good because in my journey this year, I've found a lot of peace from orientating to the third member of the traditional trio: Beauty.

I've spent a lot of time wondering whether EA is somewhere I want to be. Can I contribute? Do I even want to contribute? Wouldn't I be happier if I thought smaller and more in the everyday? But I keep coming back to the fact that I find EA beautiful.

Not beautiful in the visual sense, or because everything EAs do is good. Rather, there's something profoundly moving about people voluntarily turning their attention away from themselves and towards the suffering and flourishing of beings they'll never meet. With a cultural discipline that seems less likely than other do-gooding movements to descend into soggy Romantic idealism - with sweeping claims and abstract nouns instead of a focus on the details and quantification.

I feel lucky that I found EA a wee bit older, when I was already quite jaded and cynical. Perhaps I'm just a typical Gen Z, but I thought really trying was a bit cringe. Where you describe bracing yourself in anticipation of pain, I think I'd simply come to regard pain and disappointment as the default, I'd accepted "The Truth" and become desensitised. What's the point of putting your heart into something that's unlikely to work? LDAR.

Many EAs could devote their intelligence, energy and ambition to making comfortable, interesting lives for themselves. They could pursue creative or competitive hobbies, spend more time with their families, and generally enjoy being alive. Some people would be doing EA style work either way, they are really sensitive to the ugliness of the work and wouldn't consider spending their life doing anything else. Yet there are others choose to concern themselves with problems they could quite easily ignore, with an awareness that their best intentions might achieve very little, or even make things worse but they try anyway. 

The choice to do this is so beautiful, partly because it's fragile and has to be made again and again 🥹

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Anyway that's a bit soppy, some reading for those who might be interested in this:

• I liked Iris Murdoch's writing about Beauty, The Good and unselfing in The Sovereignty of Good. She has some spicy words for her contemporary British philosophers who were obsessed with "reasons" for doing good - she thought "seeing" was a better metaphor for how moral progress happened within an individual
• Her kestral example for how beauty draws her attention away from herself and towards something existing independently of her.

“I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious to my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important”

• I think one problem in EA is that we're often too quick to resolve uncertainty into a judgement. Which cause is best? Which person is promising? Which intervention is most effective? Tbf you need to be able to act under uncertainty but I think especially for judgements of people, this often happens too fast.
• The poet Keats had a wonderful term for the ability to remain with uncertainty without prematurely reaching for a conclusion: negative capability. 

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Wishing you well!

I think we're talking past each other.

I see EA primarily as a movement that helps individuals work out how to do the most good with their own time, money and resources. That includes their careers, political influence, and responsibilities as citizens. It's not just a collection of charities distributing donations.

My point about USAID was precisely that political and institutional decisions can dwarf private philanthropy, and that I want people thinking seriously about how they can influence decisions of that scale.

I'm not American, and I have very little influence over what happens in the US. Equally, the bad behaviour of people I've never met, whose actions I neither endorse nor have any control over, doesn't fundamentally change my assessment of how I can do the most good.

I don't see EA as an institution to which I owe unconditional loyalty, or whose members' behaviour I have to defend. But I am loyal to the kind, thoughtful people I know personally who are working incredibly hard to make the world a better place. I think they deserve better than sweeping condemnations of the movement they've dedicated so much of themselves to.

Anyway, conscious of the irony of spending so much time arguing about whether arguing about EA is a good use of time, I think I'll leave it there!

IMO this is quite melodramatic and rude.

These are serious problems, but I think the world is facing considerably more pressing ones, and I don't really understand why you think these should be prioritised over direct work on those problems?

We've had this conversation before, but my personal view is that the default outcome for most attempts to do good is failure or mediocrity. 

I don't defend Ellison, I don't defend Manifund's decision, cults are bad, misinformation is bad. These problems should be addressed. But I don't think they justify the sweeping conclusion that EA is morally rotten, let alone that it's doing more harm than good.

Quite frankly, I don't think Project for Awesome or Rotary International are reasonable substitutes for EA's particular scope and ambitions. Did you see the scale of the USAID cuts??? Annual USAID-managed funding commitments fell by roughly $19 billion between 2024 and 2025. That's ~50x the Rotary Foundation's annual expenditure and ~4,500x Project for Awesome's annual fundraising. 

If you find something, or build something, better - I'll happily jump ship. In the meantime, the leaky boat we're in still looks better than the alternatives.

And genuinely, what's the theory of change behind spending your time persuading people to abandon EA? What do you hope that achieves relative to other things you could be doing?

Interesting - thanks for sharing!

"there's a lot more noise about what EA thinks rather than what EA does, aligning with the stereotype that philosophers don't do anything to apply their ideas in the real world."

Agree with this ^^ This is weird because IMO EA is far more interesting as a practical project than a set of ideas

Mad story!

Thanks for organising @Mick 

Thanks for this, James! 

Apologies, my comment was a bit flippant and easy to say when I'm not the one making the difficult trade-offs 😅 FWIW I think it sounded like the right call at the time and I'll be the first to admit that my misty-eyed nostalgia doesn't scale. 

Delighted that my vibes based speculation bares out in the data - excited to read that report 👀

Giving significantly and effectively should be a norm - it's really exciting that you guys will have additional capacity for in-person support!! 

I'm looking forward to working with whoever ends up in the London role!! (If it could be you - pls pls apply 👆🏻👆🏻)

Great clarification question

So recruiting isn't capital expenditure because the entity does not own or control its employees. Employees can resign whenever and, unless they are also shareholders, they don't have a stake in maximising the profitability of the enterprise (beyond retaining their job). 

Maybe my analogy isnt actually great here - maybe I'm the better analogy is shareholders. Or maybe I'm a hammer viewing everything as a nail 😂

I like Matt Reardons comparison to sports culture :

EA can learn a lot from sports culture, particularly the sense that everyone is on the same page in wanting the team to win no matter what. The primary aspect of this I’m drawn to is that sports fans very rarely ask “what’s in it for me, personally?” On this analogy, I think it’s a mistake for EA orgs to present themselves as recruiting players (direct workers) rather than fans (donors). If you focus on recruiting fans, the players recruit themselves! And you have fans instead of varyingly-disgruntled passed-over players.

 https://open.substack.com/pub/frommatter/p/12-theses-on-ea?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=diohx

He uses the term "recruiting" here but I don't think you need to recruit fans, you just need the sport to be enough fun to watch and for there to be existing fan infrastructure and culture to absorb new people. 

I see my role as community builder as a someone building and maintaining infrastructure for other fans and giving them support if they're interested in going pro. 

The infrastructure and the culture is the asset. 

Lol, IMO this comment is kinda rude and disrespectful.

What is "effective" or "altruistic" about it? 

This isn't LessWrong. Dumb people can do good effectively if they are disciplined, thoughtful and careful. Haven't you ever asked a stupid question?

It might not be the best use of your time to be kind, helpful and supportive to people trying to do good better. But if not, why are you here?