Dave Cortright đ¸
Bio
Participation4
I have been a serious philanthropist since 2004 and part of the EA community since 2017. I am audaciously optimistic we can ameliorating the global mental health crisis. I used my coaching and facilitatation skills to help grow EA capacity. I support environmental and animal welfare organizations. I am on the advisory council of Vegan Outreach and the Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Board.
I am a certified professional coach, with additional experience in crisis counseling and peer mentoring. I shifted to mental health and well-being after 25 years as a designer, manager, and director at Silicon Valley tech companies. I am passionate about helping others, and by guiding them to find their true calling, I amplify my impact on improving the world.
How others can help me
I'm looking for partners to work on a peer support group (PSG) program that will help alleviate the global mental health crisis. I'm especially interested in working with students at colleges and universities, or young adults in general.
How I can help others
Figuring out what to do next in your life for maximal impact.Â
Donât ask what the world needs, but ask what makes you come alive, because that is what the world needs: people who have come alive.
âHoward Thurman
Posts 23
Comments138
Topic contributions1
Iâm a fan of âwisdom of crowdsâ. But I suspectâat least for the top-rated onesâthere has been coordinated ballot box stuffing by staff and supporters. And like many user reviews online, it tends toward bimodal of "great" or "awful". Most people don't make the effort to write "it was ok" reviews.
I feel there's too much noise and not enough signal to make it a worthwhile source.
EoL Competition, EOL in the software world means "End of Life". I'd recommend choosing a different acronym. LongTermism could be abbreviated LT, so EoLT or Thoughts on Longtermism, TLT. (LTE is already taken đ)
For me, the foundational question is "How much is enough?" How much do I need to live a reasonably healthy, happy life? Kahneman & Deaton (2010) found this to be $75,000, which would be about $100k in 2025. I use this as my baseline (adjusted for the cost of living in my area). Maybe this will help others contextualize.
I encourage everyone to lower their achievement bar all the way down to "minimize harm". There is no rational reason to beat yourself up for not reaching some arbitrary goalpost, even if it is one that you set for yourself and was arguably achievable. Life happens, and new circumstances and data can easily shift things.Â
For example, if you were hit by a bus and in the ICU recovering, no one would expect you to be productive. Why is it any different for milder versions? Have the flu or a cold? Didn't sleep well last night? Completely exhausted and burnt out?
"Should" is the most insidious word we use. "I should be able to achieve more or give more or be better". Love and accept yourself where you are. Then, if you want to make step towards improvement, do so. But keep them small and don't compare against others or hypotheticals. The only comparison that matters is against yourself.
Alcohol is indeed a Class 1 carcinogen. As the WHO says bluntly, âNo level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.â
But it is also one of the nine factors in Blue Zonesâlongevity outlier populations.
So, how to explain the contraction? The power of community and relationships:
The positive effects of consistent, strong, and healthy relationships are so much more powerful than other factors, they become essentially rounding errors in the equation.
I overall agree that alcohol is a net negative to society. But if it is ingested in moderation as part of social bonding rituals like evening meals together or spiritual services, the positive effects of these rituals on our healthâespecially bolstering our amazing immune systems that constantly repair mild to moderate damage in our bodiesâmore than make up for the negatives of the alcohol.
Maybe your belief is that if enough people "at the top" of EA agree to this, they can influence a majority of the EA community to follow. My sense is that EAs are more independent freethinkers than most other groups, so I don't think this scenario is likely.
Given that, what you're proposing is essentially relabeling the current set of "EAs who care about animal welfare" to "EA". A few EAs who aren't already in this camp might follow you over, but on the whole I strongly suspect this would alienate everyone else who doesn't sign up for this worldview, and it would just fracture the community.