Today CEA is releasing the second edition of our Effective Altruism Handbook.
You can get the pdf version here, and we also have epub/mobi versions for people who prefer e-readers.
What is CEA's EA Handbook?
It’s an introduction to some of the core concepts in effective altruism.
If you’re new to effective altruism, it should give you an overview of the key ideas and problems that we’ve found so far. But if you have already engaged with effective altruism, there should be some new insights amongst the familiar ideas.
The pieces are a mix of essays and adaptations of conference talks. We’ve tried to put them in an order that makes sense. Together we think they cover some of the key ideas in the effective altruism community.
Why a new edition?
The first edition of CEA's EA Handbook is now 3 years old. As a community, we’ve changed a lot in those three years, and learnt a lot. In fact, comparing the new handbook with the old is a good way to get a sense of just how much intellectual progress we’ve made.
After consulting with Ryan Carey, the editor of the old handbook, we agreed it was time for something new, and for a slightly more polished design. Stefan Schubert and I compiled a list of talks and articles, and the authors were gracious enough to give us permission. With the help of a small army of transcribers and copy-editors, and Laura Pomarius’ design skills, we brought it together.
What next?
We hope that this becomes a reference point for people who are new to effective altruism, and a summary that local groups can share with their members.
We are not currently planning to make a physical version of CEA's EA Handbook: we think that the articles and design are high quality for an online pdf. However, we worry that it might damage the brand of effective altruism to distribute or sell physical copies of a resource which remains only a collection of articles and talks, rather than a polished book.
We’d welcome feedback on any aspect of the new edition.
Here are the links again if you want to get reading or sharing:
[Edited the body of the post to reflect changes made to the contents on 23 May 2018, and change links.]
Thanks so much for all of the feedback everyone, this was very helpful for me to work out the problems with the old version. I've been working on getting a version which everyone can agree will be an improvement.
All of the more minor changes to the Handbook have now been completed, and are available at the links in the OP.
In addition to the minor changes, I plan to add the following articles:
80,000 Hours' Problem Framework (https://80000hours.org/articles/problem-framework/)
A forthcoming piece from 80,000 Hours on coordination as a community (including the portfolio approach)
Sentience Institute's Foundational question summaries (possibly slightly shortened) (https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/foundational-questions-summaries)
David Roodman's research for GiveWell on the worm wars (https://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/06/why-i-mostly-believe-in-worms/)
I may also make some edits to the three "cause profile" pieces, some for length, and adding some details to the long-term future piece. The more major edits might take a couple of months (for the 80,000 Hours piece to be ready, for redesign).
I've reached out to some of the original commenters, and some of the main research/community building orgs in the space, asking for further comments. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to try to make this a better product. I for one am more excited about the version-to-come than the version-as-was.