The Value of Those in Effective Altruism

13 Gleb_Tsipursky 17 February 2016 12:59AM

Summary/TL;DR: this piece offers Fermi Estimates of the value of those in EA, focusing on the distinctions between typical EA members and dedicated members (defined below). These estimates suggest that, compared to the current movement baseline, we should prioritize increasing the number of “typical” EA members and getting more non-EA people to behave like typical EA members, rather than getting typical EAs to become dedicated ones.

 

[Acknowledgments: Thanks to Tom Ash, Jon Behar, Ryan Carey, Denis Drescher, Michael Dickens, Stefan Schubert, Claire Zabel, Owen Cotton-Barratt, Ozzie Gooen, Linchuan Zheng, Chris Watkins, Julia Wise, Kyle Bogosian, Max Chapnick, Kaj Sotaja, Taryn East, Kathy Forth, Scott Weathers, Hunter Glenn, Alfredo Parra, William Kiely,  Jay Quigley, and others who prefer to remain anonymous for looking at various draft versions of this post. Thanks to their feedback, the post underwent heavy revisions. Any remaining oversights, as well as all opinions expressed, are my responsibility.]

 

This article is a follow-up to "Celebrating All Who Are In Effective Altruism"

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Celebrating All Who Are in Effective Altruism

21 Gleb_Tsipursky 20 January 2016 01:31AM

Elitism and Effective Altruism

 

Many criticize Effective Altruists as elitist. While this criticism is vastly overblown, unfortunately, it does have some basis, not only from the outside looking in but also within the movement itself, including some explicitly arguing for elitism.

 

Within many EA circles, there are status games and competition around doing “as much as we can,” and in many cases, even judging and shaming, usually implicit and unintended but no less real, of those whom we might term softcore EAs. These are people who identify as EAs and donate money and time to effective charities, but otherwise lead regular lives, as opposed to devoting the brunt of their resources to advance human flourishing as do hardcore EAs. To be clear, there is no definitive and hard distinction between softcore and hardcore EAs, but this is a useful heuristic to employ, as long as we keep in mind that softcore and hardcore are more like poles on a spectrum rather than binary categories.

 

We should help softcore EAs feel proud of what they do, and beware implying that being softcore EA is somehow deficient or simply the start of an inevitable path to being a hardcore EA. This sort of mentality has caused people I know to feel guilty and ashamed, and led to some leaving the EA movement. Remember that we all suffer from survivorship bias based on seeing those who remained, and not those who left - I specifically talked to people who left, and tried to get their takes on why they did so.

 

I suggest we aim to respect people wherever they are on the softcore/hardcore EA spectrum. I propose that, from a consequentialist perspective, negative attitudes toward softcore EAs are counterproductive for doing the most good for the world.

 

Why We Need Softcore EAs

 

Even if the individual contributions of softcore EAs are much less than the contributions of individual hardcore EAs, it’s irrational and anti-consequentialist to fail to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of softcore EAs, and yet that is the status quo for the EA movement. As in any movement, the majority of EAs are not deeply committed activists, but are normal people for whom EA is a valuable but not primary identity category.

 

All of us were softcore EAs once - if you are a hardcore EA now, envision yourself back in those shoes. How would you have liked to have been treated? Acknowledged and celebrated or pushed to do more and more and more? How many softcore EAs around us are suffering right now due to the pressure of expectations to ratchet up their contributions?

 

I get it. I myself am driven by powerful emotional urges to reduce human suffering and increase human flourishing. Besides my full-time job as a professor, which takes about ~40 hours per week, I’ve been working ~50-70 hours per week for the last year and a half as the leader of an EA and rationality-themed meta-charity. As all people do, when I don’t pay attention, I fall unthinkingly into the mind projection fallacy, assuming other people think like I do and have my values, as well as my capacity for productivity and impact. I have a knee-jerk pattern as part of my emotional self to identify with and give social status to fellow hardcore EAs, and consider us an in-group, above softcore EAs.

 

These are natural human tendencies, but destructive ones. From a consequentialist perspective, it weakens our movement and undermines our capacity to build a better world and decrease suffering for current and future humans and other species.

 

More softcore EAs are vital for the movement itself to succeed. Softcore EAs can help fill talent gaps and donating to effective direct-action charities, having a strong positive impact on the outside world. Within the movement, they support the hardcore EAs emotionally through giving them a sense of belonging, safety, security, and encouragement, which are key for motivation and mental and physical health. Softcore EAs also donate to and volunteer for EA-themed meta-charities, as well as providing advice and feedback, and serving as evangelists of the movement.

 

Moreover, softcore EAs remind hardcore EAs of the importance of self-care and taking time off for themselves. This is something we hardcore EAs must not ignore! I’m speaking from personal experience here.

 

Fermi Estimates of Hardcore and Softcore Contributions

 

If we add up the amount of resources contributed to the movement by softcore EAs, they will likely add up to substantially more than the resources contributed by hardcore EAs. For instance, the large majority of those who took the Giving What We Can and The Life You Can Save pledges are softcore EAs, and so are all the new entrants to the EA movement, by definition.

 

To attach some numbers to this claim, let’s do a Fermi Estimate that uses some educated guesses to get at the actual resources each group contributes. Say that for every 100 EAs, there are 5 hardcore EAs and 95 softcore EAs. We can describe softcore EAs as contributing anywhere from 1 to 10 percent of their resources to EA causes (this is the range from The Life You Can Save pledge to the Giving What We Can pledge), so let’s guesstimate around 5 percent. Hardcore EAs we can say give an average of 50% of their resources to the movement. Using the handy Guesstimate app, here is a link to a model that shows softcore EAs contribute 480 resources, and hardcore EAs contribute 250 resources per 100 EAs. Now, these are educated guesses, and you can use the model I put together to put in your own numbers for the number of hardcore and softcore EAs per 100 EAs, and also the percent of their resources contributed. In any case, you will find that softcore EAs contribute a substantial amount of resources.

 

We should also compare the giving of softcore EAs to the giving of members of the general public to get a better grasp on the benefits provided to improving the world by softcore EAs. Let’s say a typical member of the general public contributes 3.5% of her resources to charitable causes, by comparison to 5% for softcore EAs. Being generous, we can estimate that the giving of non-EAs is 100 times less effective than that of EAs. Thus, using the same handy app, here is a link to a model that demonstrates the impact of giving by a typical member of the general public, 3.5, vs. the impact of giving by a softcore EA, 500. Now, the impact of giving by a hardcore EA is going to be higher, of course, 5000 as opposed to 500, but again, we have to remember that there are many more softcore EAs who give resources. You’re welcome to plug in your own numbers to get estimates if you think my suggested figures don’t match your intuitions. Regardless, you can see the high-impact nature of how a typical softcore EA compares to a typical member of the general public.

 

Effective Altruism, Mental Health, and Burnout: A Personal Account

 

About two years ago, in February 2014, my wife and I co-founded our meta-charity. In the summer of that year, she suffered a nervous breakdown due to burnout over running the organization. I had to - or to be accurate, chose to - take over both of our roles in managing the nonprofit, assuming the full burden of leadership.

 

In the Fall of 2014, I myself started to develop a mental disorder from the strain of doing both my professor job and running the organization, while also taking care of my wife. It started with heightened anxiety, which I did not recognize as something abnormal at the time - after all, with the love of my life recovering very slowly from a nervous breakdown and me running the organization, anxiety seemed natural. I was flinching away from my problem, not willing to recognize it and pretending it was fine, until some volunteers at the meta-charity I run – most of them softcore EAs – pointed it out to me.

 

I started to pay more attention to this, especially as I began to experience fatigue spells and panic attacks. With the encouragement of these volunteers, who essentially pushed me to get professional help, I began to see a therapist and take medication, which I continue to do to this day. I scaled back on the time I put into the nonprofit, from 70 hours per week on average to 50 hours per week. Well, to be honest, I occasionally put in more than 50, as I’m very emotionally motivated to help the world, but I try to restrain myself. The softcore volunteers at the meta-charity I run know about my workaholism and the danger of burnout for me, and remind me to take care of myself. I also need to remind myself constantly that doing good for the world is a marathon and not a sprint, and that in the long run, I will do much more good by taking it easy on myself.

 

Celebrating Everyone

 

As a consequentialist, my analysis, along with my personal experience, convince me that the accomplishments of softcore EAs should be celebrated as well as those of hardcore EAs.

 

So what can we do? We should publicly showcase the importance of softcore EAs. For example, we can encourage publications of articles that give softcore EAs the recognition they deserve, as well as those who give a large portion of their earnings and time to charity. We can invite a softcore EA to speak about her/his experiences at the 2016 EA Global. We can publish interviews with softcore EAs. Now, I’m not suggesting we should make most speakers softcore EAs, or write most articles, or conduct most interviews with softcore EAs. Overall, my take is that it’s appropriate to celebrate individual EAs proportional to their labors, and as the numbers above show, hardcore EAs individually contribute quite a bit more than softcore EAs. Yet we as a movement need to go against the current norm of not celebrating softcore EAs, and these are just some specific steps that would help us achieve this goal.

 

Let’s celebrate all who engage in Effective Altruism. Everyone contributes in their own way. Everyone makes the world a better place.

 

Acknowledgments: For their feedback on draft versions of this post, I want to thank Linch (Linchuan) Zhang, Hunter Glenn, Denis Drescher, Kathy Forth, Scott Weathers, Jay Quigley, Chris Waterguy (Watkins), Ozzie Gooen, Will Kiely, and Jo Duyvestyn. I bear sole responsibility for any oversights and errors remaining in the post, of course.

 


A different version of this, without the Fermi estimates, was cross-posted on the EA Forum.

 

 

EDIT: added link to post explicitly arguing for EA elitism

Rationality Merchandise - First Set

11 Gleb_Tsipursky 05 November 2015 06:12AM

As part of my broader project of promoting rationality to a wide audience, we developed clothing with rationality-themed slogans. This apparel is suited for aspiring rationalists to wear to show their affiliation with rationality, to remind themselves and other aspiring rationalists to improve, and to spread positive memes broadly.

 

My gratitude to all those who gave suggestions about and voted on these slogans, both on LW itself and the LW Facebook group. This is the first set of seven slogans that had the most popular support from Less Wrongers, and more will be coming soon.

 

The apparel is pretty affordable, starting at under $15. All profits will go to funding nonprofit work dedicated to spreading rationality to a broad audience.

 

Links to Clothing with Slogans:


1) Less Wrong Every Day

This slogan conveys a key aspiration of every aspiring rationalist - to grow less wrong every day and have a clearer map of the territory. This is not only a positive meme, but also a clear sign of affiliation with rationality and the Less Wrong community in particular.

 

2) Growing Mentally Stronger

This slogan conveys the broad goal of rationality, namely for its participants to grow mentally stronger. This shirt helps prime the wearer and those around the wearer to focus on growing more rational, both epistemically and instrumentally. It is more broadly accessible than something like "Less Wrong Every Day."

 

3) Living On Purpose

This slogan conveys the intentional nature of how aspiring rationalists live their life, with a clear set of terminal goals and strategies to reach those goals.

 

4) Please Provide An Example

This slogan and its variants received a lot of support from aspiring rationalists tired of discussions and debates with people who talked in broad abstract terms and failed to provide examples. It automatically reminds those who you are talking with, both aspiring rationalists and non-rationalists, to be concrete and specific in their engagement with you, and minimizes wasted airtime and inefficient discussions.

 

5) I Notice I'm Confused

This slogan reminds the wearer and those around the wearer of the vital skill of noticing confusion for growing aware of gaps between one's map and the reality of the territory. Moreover, in field testing this design, this slogan proved especially fruitful for prompting conversations about rationality from those curious about this slogan.

 

6) Glad To Change My Mind

This slogan conveys and reinforces one of the most fundamental aspects of rationality - the eagerness and yearning to change one's mind based on evidence. The slogan is an especially impactful way of conveying rationality broadly, as the sentiment of updating beliefs based on evidence is something that many intelligent people wish for society. Thus, it helps attract intellectually-oriented people into discussions about rationality.

 

7) Changed Your Mind? Achievement Unlocked!

This slogan has the same benefits as the above slogan, except being more outwardly oriented and expressing the message in a more meme-style format.

 

Other ideas for slogans that had support, in no particular order (Note that we limited the number of words to 4 longer words or 7 shorter words to fit on a T-shirt, and some of these combine Effective Altruism and Rationality):

 

  • How Much Do You Believe That?
  • Reach Your Goals Using Science
  • Truth Is Not Partisan
  • Glad To Give Citations
  • What is True is Already So
  • Reality Doesn’t Take Sides
  • In Math We Trust
  • In Reason We Trust
  • Seeking Constructive Feedback
  • Make New Mistakes Only
  • Constantly Optimizing
  • Absence Of Evidence Is Evidence Of Absence
  • Rationality: Accurate Beliefs + Winning Decisions
  • I Chose This Rationally
  • Combining Heart And Head
  • Effective Altruism
  • Doing the Most Good Per Dollar
  • Optimizing QALYs
  • Superdonor
  • Making My Life Meaningful
  • Purpose Comes from Within

 

I would appreciate feedback on the current designs. As you get and wear them, I'd appreciate learning about your experience wearing them, to learn what kind of reaction you get. So far, we've had quite positive reports from our field tests of the merchandise, with good conversations prompted by wearing these slogans.

 

Also, please share which of the additional slogans are your favorites, so we can get them done sooner. If you have additional ideas for slogans, list them in comments below, and remember the guidelines of 4 longer words to 7 short words, and making them accessible to a broad audience to spread rationality memes.

 

Besides clothing, what other kind of merchandise would you like to buy?

 

Look forward to your feedback! If you want to contact me privately about the merchandise or the broader project of spreading rationality to a broad audience, my email is gleb@intentionalinsights.org