Members of the EA movement do so much great work, but much of it occurs in private or local contexts not known to others around the globe. Yet publicizing our good deeds is really valuable for optimizing global flourishing. Thus sharing about what good you did is a very EA thing to do. So please share any EA-themed accomplishments you have not yet shared on previous Accomplishment open threads, whether recent achievements or ones from long ago. This includes one-time accomplishments or ongoing activities on which you are continuously working. This thread is a completely safe space, with no social norms of "don't be a braggart" applying - just share and be safe in your sharing. Share as many or as few good deeds as you wish.
Please both share about your own good deeds and respond to what other people share with your authentic responses, ranging from upvoting to comments :-) Doing so will help motivate each other to greater accomplishments going forward and build capacity for the EA movement.
Now, sharing about our accomplishments may seek awkward at first, since it goes against social norms, but we in Effective Altruism know the benefit of trying out unorthodox approaches for good reasons. Sharing about our goods deeds results in many benefits for the world:
1) Inspiring others to emulate some aspects of those good deeds through social proof and network effects.
2) Support each other doing good deeds through providing social connections, positive rewards, and warm feelings, which are vital forencouraging further pro-social activities.
3) Amplifying the signal about things you want others to know about, such as EA projects you are involved in, EA articles you published, etc.
P.S. This is an experiment, and is very open to optimization - besides sharing about your good deeds, please suggest ways to improve any aspects of it. For the history of previous Accomplishment Open Threads, see here and also this .impact FB discussion.
Thanks to Gleb_T for encouraging me to contribute to this thread. I am new to the forum and relatively new to the EA movement. I'd like to share an agreement I made with my wife regarding giving. It has enabled us to give more and has reduced some conflict in our marriage. I hope it might be useful for others as well. Since we view all of our finances as jointly owned, we always discuss spending, unless it is within some automated account. We would discuss charitable donations on a case-by-case basis, so when one of us wanted to make a donation we would bring it up and present our case. Since we don't always agree with each other, this was an obstacle to our giving. To resolve this, we have agreed to give away 10% of our pre-tax income annually, with each of us having separate control over half of the total. That way we can each give to our favorite causes without having to seek agreement from the other. Also, we have a fixed budget for giving. Of course, if we both agree, we can give more than the total of 10%. So far it has worked well. We have donated to Action Against Hunger and Intentional Insights, and there will be more to come.
Nice idea! And this makes me think we should have a meme saying something like: "You're an Effective Altruist if your fights with your significant other are over where to donate"