First post here (long time lurker) and I’m starting off spicy :) While I have several EA friends and generally align with EA ideas, I don’t identify as an effective altruist. Tangent: I think veganism has a branding problem too and I’m only outwardly identifying as a “vegan” because it simplifies interactions like ordering in restaurants; however, I generally don’t need the EA label to facilitate day-to-day life and have successfully avoided it thus far. This post outlines the three biggest gripes I have about the EA community and I think they are turning other people off too.
“It’s a hive mind”[1]
When talking to EA-aware but not actually EA people (especially in tech), they’ll likely tell you EA feels like a cult. The press on personalities like SBF and Rob Granieri certainly didn’t help, though the EA community does (subconsciously) enforce quite a bit of uniformity in thoughts and actions — everyone generally agrees on the most important causes and the most effective ways to contribute to these causes, so everyone feels obliged to dedicate themselves to these causes in these specific ways. As a more concrete example, I agree AI safety/alignment is existential but I’m just not that interested in working on it despite having the right skills/background; given EA’s current focus on AGI, I feel as if I’m doing something BAD by not dedicating more time to this topic when I talk to a EA member or simply read an EA article. More broadly, “effective altruism” implies if you don’t do things our way, then it’s ineffective/irrational, which can be quite a blow to those who don’t want to feel like a dummy.
“Holier-than-thou”
This critique is mostly about the 10% pledge (yes, I understand the caveats that it’s not literally 10% for everyone every year). I get that accountability and community around giving is helpful, though I wonder if the orange or blue diamonds are sending the right signals (do we have data on how people hear about the pledge vs. their chance of taking it?). The little icon next to user names in social media is giving “cult” vibes again (think a cross or an astrological sign next to someone’s user name). The bigger problems are beyond virtue signaling: (1) it doesn’t work synergistically with FIRE (I’m planning to FIRE before 30, which is quite extreme, but many EA-curious people I know are also interested in FIRE), (2) it can feel overwhelming, especially to those struggling with mental health or neurodivergence (I’m autistic and can get sensory overloaded by drinking water or eating breakfast, so having my name on a public list and being asked to report my donations all the time for the rest of my life would definitely overwhelm me to the point of deterrence). Personally, my partner and I donate on average ~$10k USD every year (plus employer matching for the most part), which is only ~1% of my income, but saving aggressively allows me to stop working early, use my time however I see fit, and continue giving a similar amount from capital gains. I don’t plan to have kids and want to donate most of my assets to effective charities upon my passing. In fact, wouldn’t it be much easier in general for people to conceptualize and pledge a certain % of their total assets to EA causes upon passing instead of doing it every year? I understand there can be value drift and reduced cost-effectiveness over time, but the steady state of these two approaches (given a large enough pledge base) doesn’t seem too different.
“Sound like AI”
EA posts can be full of (deep) hierarchical table-of-content and longer-than-necessary content. EA is also associated with obscure (to gen pop) concepts like longtermism, accelerationism, micromorts etc. As mentioned above, I’m autistic (and deeply interested in philosophy), yet I often find reading EA content exhausting. When I talk to my EA friends, they don’t sound like AI-generated academic papers and our colloquial/ less researched exchanges can feel more convincing than reading way too many stats and big words.
I hope I don’t come off too condescending and I’m open to hear counterarguments. Again, I resonate with EA’s core ideas and would love to brainstorm together on how to make them more appealing to the average guy, gal, or non-binary pal. I’d also like to hear your hot takes that may not align with the standard EA stance.
- ^
I'm using quotation marks because I don't fully endorse the connotations these comments carry. I think they’re a bit tongue-in-cheek — not totally fair yet with a kernel of truth worth considering.
Welcome to the Forum, Zoe! I guess my knee-jerk response to this would be that I agree that these are significant problems with EA branding, I don't think most of these have easy, tractable answers (sadly a common occurrence in EA branding problems imo, eg "longtermism" being perceived as callous toward present-day issues).
"Hive mind" seems hard to avoid when building a community of people working toward common goals that are somewhat strange. "Holier-than-thou" is almost inevitable in "doing the most good one can" (and EA seems in fact quite relaxed by this standard, though your specific criticisms of the 10% pledge were interesting to read). "Sounds like AI", however, is probably fixable, and individuals could make some efforts, in the age where "AI-like writing" is increasingly criticized, to have a slightly warmer style, and maybe to de-emphasize bulletpoints somewhat? (less sure about this, I like bulletpoints)
But above all, I want to say, congratulations on your yearly donations! Even if it's not the holy grail of 10%, 10K a year is absolutely no joke, and giving 10% is far from having become an EA norm anyway. This level of donations, and the plan to keep going, is rare and precious. Thank you for doing so much for others!
Hi Zoe! Great to see you on the Forum.
I know that EAs and FIRE people often hang out in similar social spaces - as they're both interested in things like higher-paying jobs, lower-cost lifestyles, and well-chosen investment strategies. I also know of a few FIRE people who plan on donating their wealth to effective charities should they not end up spending it all in retirement. I believe the rough opinion of EAs who donate now is that there are a number of pressing near-term issues that will (hopefully!) not exist in 40 years. One might hope that we'd have eradicated malaria by then, for example. So people who are really interested in fighting malaria (or other neglected global health challenges) donate now.
I think the choice for an effective giver to pledge or not to pledge, to advertise or not to advertise one's giving, to donate now or later etc. is really an individual's choice, and I'd support them setting up a structure that works for them and their life. It seems like you have a structure that works for you, and I'm glad of that.
On a separate note: I'm hoping that EA is getting away from being "AI safety long words club" as a result of a) AI safety group organising spinning out of EA into its own thing, and b) funded AI safety work becoming more about public and government engagement rather than fairly niche research.
I have mostly decided that I don't care what anyone else thinks about the diamond next to my name, because anyone else that could be thinking of this is probably not someone in danger of dying from a neglected tropical disease. There are probably a few people in my life that would be actively upset if they were aware I was giving away thousands of pounds a year but not to them. I don't go out of my way to wave it in their face that that's what I'm doing, that'd be crass. But I am really rather over the idea that we all need to pretend that we don't have any money spare for giving while at the same time socking out piles of cash on personal spending.
My hottest take is that EA needs to figure out better engagement strategies for effective givers and not constantly dunk on "earning to give" as a controversial concept. And also make its large events cheaper (there's been great progress on this). I reckon EA needs to prepare for the very real possibility/eventuality of our per-person infrastructure funding getting restricted.