The way I see it is EA is based on a ladder of arguments. Each argument has an X% chance of being correct. Following EA a little bit is like ok 95% chance you're doing the right thing. But as you keep on adding conditions (if this, then this) the chance of being correct drops lol

I'm a longtime Effective Altruist and the co-founder of the organization most frequently used as a stand-in for "EAs have lost their minds" (a.k.a. Shrimp Welfare Project). I've also read The Economist for over 20 years, so I was disappointed by how they portrayed a community I feel proud to be part of. I never post but I could hardly believe the verbal gymnastics one needs to do to make things like “taking moral commitments seriously” and "considering evidence and odds explicitly, correcting for biases" sound like the problem. I felt I had to speak my mind. Some of the implicit criticisms of EA are that we're young, inexperienced, from elite universities, polyamorous, wildly eccentric, etc. FWIW, I'm in my mid-40s, Mexican, straight, have a beautiful wife and 2 kids, and I grew up in a mid-sized conservative city with loving parents who got divorced when I was six. Pretty standard. After my parents divorced, my mom frequently had to make difficult economic choices, like whether to buy flowers for our kitchen table and eat only quesadillas, or eat something a tiny bit fancier. I always told her I loved quesadillas because I knew flowers made her happy. After graduating from a public university, I worked in finance for ~15 years and saved as much as I could so I could spare my wife and future kids the economic hardships I experienced. In that time I met thousands of people in finance, corporate law, accounting, real estate, insurance, etc. Most were decent, well-educated, ambitious and smart, all doing their best to excel in their professions. Most wanted to make money and improve their own and their loved ones’ quality of life. Nothing to see here. Since I found Effective Altruism ~7 years ago, most of the people I come across are of a different rarer kind. They come from all over the world, in all shapes and sizes, but they have the one thing in common: they want to improve the world using evidence and reason wherever that leads them. Yeah, they/we make a ton of mistakes like everyone but, IMHO tend to own them more frequently than the average person. I've met people who could easily be making >100% more money in a normal job, but instead they dedicate themselves to improving the lives of those who need it the most. People in the poorest countries whose children die from preventable diseases, from lack of basic medical equipment or vaccination, from lead in paint. Animals in factory farms subjected to conditions that most people find abhorrent, doesn't matter if you're vegan, vegetarian or a huge meat lover. Yes, recently many of the people in my community are moving to work on making sure that AI and other powerful new technologies don't result in terrible things for humanity. I'm one of those people and contrary to what the article would suggest, it has nothing to do with the fact that SBF committed one of the biggest frauds in history or that someone wrote hundreds of thousands of words of fan fiction. I'm doing it because I want to do the little that's in my power to make the world that my kids and grandkids (and yes, potentially their great-great-grandchildren) will inherit a better one. EA gave me a way to do that and I will be forever thankful. So no, I'm not EA-adjacent. economist.com/international/…

We have withdrawn our grant recommendation to John Wentworth from the 2026 S-Process Grant Round. After we posted our announcement on Sept 30, public statements by Mr. Wentworth came to our attention which we found objectionable, disturbing, and contrary to the values of SFF. A Speculation Grant to Mr. Wentworth was approved and disbursed earlier in the year, prior to SFF becoming aware of his statements. The Funders of this round will not be fulfilling the remainder of the grant recommendation. If you have concerns about the conduct of an SFF applicant or grantee, you can contact us at sff-contact@googlegroups.com

Our cover this week, on effective altruism, which we describe as "the 21st century’s most important social movement"

Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei and husband used stuffed-animal 'advisory council' for workplace conflicts: report trib.al/56qjBzd

Skilled trades are frequently thought of as a route out of poverty. But trades workers tell a different story. @JesseTayRiver, a contractor who works in home remodeling, explains:

For those wondering, ofc I pitched him

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies is on the NYT bestseller list again.

I am featured on the DataRepublican EA quote page. Are you?

🚨🇺🇸🇺🇸 DATAREPUBLICAN 2.0 LAUNCH, FEATURING THE EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM (EA) EXPLORER 🇺🇸 The website redesign has finally landed thanks to @watilo ! For a decade, one small ideological network has been taking over AI governance. Chances are, if you've heard of AI policy, AI ethics, AI safety - these groups are dominated by this ideology. This ideology is called: Effective Altruism. Three weeks ago, Effective Altruists (EAs) showed their hand when they started calling for a moratarium on AI development. Since them, I've been building out this map to show the circularity of their ideology. Let's take one example. Holden Karnofsky. Defends the moral worth of digital people ... that's right, he wrote an article on why AI "people" should be assigned value as if they were living humans. Karnofsky co-founded two major EA philanthropies, GiveWell and Open Philanthropy. Subsequently went to work for METR, a central "independent" AI research nonprofit. And for good measure - recently announced a leave of absence to work on AI safety. Funding, policy, research, safety all in the same person. And he's far from the only one. EAs have created a closed-circuit network because they believe they're right; ergo, they should be in charge. The goal of launching this project was to expose all this circularity. Sam Bankman-Fried was only the beginning. With the EA Explorer: * 🌐 Read an introduction to Effective Altruism in their own words. * 🔥 Explore verified quotes. Again, their words, not mine. * 🖥️ Explore the network of connections. UI improvements still in progress. * 🖨️ Print out networks so you can study them offline (or run them through AI) 👇 Try it now (link in next post):