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Scott Alexander's avatar

--EA: Does 99 boring things and 1 crazy thing

--FDB: Ignores all the boring things because they're boring (totally fair! we all do this!), then asks "Why is EA only doing crazy things and never the boring things?"

Quick example: GiveWell continues to direct ~$500 million/year, mostly to deworming, malaria nets, and cash grants to poor Africans. My guess is the total amount of money ever spent on researching/discussing carnivore eradication is <$500,000 (though I could be wrong), AFAIK no money has ever been spent implementing it.

The boring things are literally a thousand times more prominent and important, people just never talk about them because they're boring.

As for everyone agreeing with EA - I think the biggest difference from ordinary people is something like utilitarianism. Without utilitarianism it's not completely coherent to talk about "do the *most* good" (although you can kind of vaguely gesture at the same concept). Once you do have utilitarianism, you start getting questions like "why aren't you donating more of your money?" and "why would you donate to a college instead of to malaria nets?" which I think are already pretty EA and not what normal people do/support/ask. So I do think the "do the most good" thing is actually kind of unique.

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Josh's avatar

I am an example of the boring kind of EA the article wants. I spend about two hours per year thinking about EA, just enough to decide that GiveWell.org is still the right place to give the 1/3 of my overall charitable giving that I allocate to global causes. I do not make EA a part of my identity or take part in the Internet subculture.

Here is the opposite of EA, in my mind. A few years ago, a local food bank that I regularly donate to sent me a survey asking for my feedback on their exciting new direction. They want to put "food justice" at the center of all of the work that they do. Their mission is no longer to just feed hungry people, it's to reframe the suffering of hungry people as a justice issue. The survey's language made it clear that the leaders of this organization are very excited and motivated by this kind of advocacy, but to me it rings hollow. Isn't it enough to just help needy people? I find it increasingly difficult to find local charities that will stick to that, without veering into utopian social justice perspectives that I fundamentally disagree with.

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