Effective Altruism Forum
EA Forum

Hide table of contents
Operational Training
by Weaver
2 min read 1

11

Building effective altruismCriticism and Red Teaming ContestEffective altruism art and fictionPublic relationsWriting advice
Frontpage

(Acknowledgements: Thanks to Abraham Rowe for taking a peek at this.)

For context: I'm an Army Officer and I spent most of my time in Civil Affairs, the international relations arm of the military.. The views expressed in this article are my own. This is for the Red Teaming  and criticism contest https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/criticism-and-red-teaming-contest

Summary

EAs need a critical piece of fiction that will draw in outsiders in a positive way. This is how we can get the word out.

  • At a high level, EA needs a foundational fiction that we can all groan about when someone is asked "What got you into EA?" "Well this fanfiction about XYZ..."
  • We can fund a lot of short and longform fiction to bring people into the fold.
  • And when I say critical I mean, something akin to how Harry Potter the original transformed YA literature.

(1) HPMOR is an excellent lead in for EA and Rationality, and we need to find other writers that can write fiction in this vein

  • EA is excellent in talking to itself, if this forum is any indication. However I believe that it runs into similar problems that US Army Civil Affairs does. Both Organizations are a little wrapped up in HOW they do what they do, making it very opaque for outsiders to understand what the heck is going on. It's not enough just to understand EA, you have to be able to ELI5 it to a media person off the top of your head. It's the same for Civil Affairs.
  • In order to understand how to communicate EA, you must be able to explain it. I like this to the analogy of the Drowning Girl. That story is a succinct way to explain our principles, in fact I used it in my book, Sect Leader.
  • Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality I will tell everyone, was my introduction to EA and Less Wrong.
  • If we're neglecting trying to influence non-EA organizations, this will become more detrimental. (Rowe, Critiques of EA that I want to read[1]) therefore, we need to think about non-EA people. Organizations are just groups of people.

(2) What is this critique even? Write more entertaining stories!

  • What does this mean for you, the reader? You should think about if you're suited to a hard life of touching keyboards with maniacal glee. If you're someone who can explain EA simply through a long story, even parts of it, then you're probably exactly who we need.
  • I run a publishing house (Indie Imprint - Riverfolk Publishing[2]) and I would love to publish other authors that write great stories, especially EA ones, but it doesn't have to be me that publishes you.
  • And if you're not one of those lovely people blessed with writing ability, if you have a big social media presence, then promote others that do!
  • The bottom line is neither you nor I understand what will bring someone into EA, but if they're reading about EA characters at least they'll begin to understand the shared values that we have.

 

  1. ^

    https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/n3WwTz4dbktYwNQ2j/critiques-of-ea-that-i-want-to-read And THANKS for this. I debated on what exactly I was doing for the red teaming, and this was the result.

  2. ^

    Website Pending

11

0
0

Reactions

0
0
Previous:
Public Relations: Message & Rapport
No comments12 karma
Comments1


Sorted by
New & upvoted
Click to highlight new comments since:
Peter2
0
0

Yeah! Stories have had a huge impact on me personally, so I definitely think they have a lot of potential. It's cool that you have a publishing house! 

I think I finally came up with an interesting EA-ish story idea the other day so I'm excited to start working on it and see how it turns out. 

Reply
More from Weaver
42
About my job: "Plans Officer"
Weaver
· · 3m read
3
3
View more
Curated and popular this week
LintzA
 ·  · 15m read
 · 
Cross-posted to Lesswrong Introduction Several developments over the past few months should cause you to re-evaluate what you are doing. These include: 1. Updates toward short timelines 2. The Trump presidency 3. The o1 (inference-time compute scaling) paradigm 4. Deepseek 5. Stargate/AI datacenter spending 6. Increased internal deployment 7. Absence of AI x-risk/safety considerations in mainstream AI discourse Taken together, these are enough to render many existing AI governance strategies obsolete (and probably some technical safety strategies too). There's a good chance we're entering crunch time and that should absolutely affect your theory of change and what you plan to work on. In this piece I try to give a quick summary of these developments and think through the broader implications these have for AI safety. At the end of the piece I give some quick initial thoughts on how these developments affect what safety-concerned folks should be prioritizing. These are early days and I expect many of my takes will shift, look forward to discussing in the comments!  Implications of recent developments Updates toward short timelines There’s general agreement that timelines are likely to be far shorter than most expected. Both Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have recently said they expect AGI within the next 3 years. Anecdotally, nearly everyone I know or have heard of who was expecting longer timelines has updated significantly toward short timelines (<5 years). E.g. Ajeya’s median estimate is that 99% of fully-remote jobs will be automatable in roughly 6-8 years, 5+ years earlier than her 2023 estimate. On a quick look, prediction markets seem to have shifted to short timelines (e.g. Metaculus[1] & Manifold appear to have roughly 2030 median timelines to AGI, though haven’t moved dramatically in recent months). We’ve consistently seen performance on benchmarks far exceed what most predicted. Most recently, Epoch was surprised to see OpenAI’s o3 model achi
Dr Kassim
 ·  · 4m read
 · 
Hey everyone, I’ve been going through the EA Introductory Program, and I have to admit some of these ideas make sense, but others leave me with more questions than answers. I’m trying to wrap my head around certain core EA principles, and the more I think about them, the more I wonder: Am I misunderstanding, or are there blind spots in EA’s approach? I’d really love to hear what others think. Maybe you can help me clarify some of my doubts. Or maybe you share the same reservations? Let’s talk. Cause Prioritization. Does It Ignore Political and Social Reality? EA focuses on doing the most good per dollar, which makes sense in theory. But does it hold up when you apply it to real world contexts especially in countries like Uganda? Take malaria prevention. It’s a top EA cause because it’s highly cost effective $5,000 can save a life through bed nets (GiveWell, 2023). But what happens when government corruption or instability disrupts these programs? The Global Fund scandal in Uganda saw $1.6 million in malaria aid mismanaged (Global Fund Audit Report, 2016). If money isn’t reaching the people it’s meant to help, is it really the best use of resources? And what about leadership changes? Policies shift unpredictably here. A national animal welfare initiative I supported lost momentum when political priorities changed. How does EA factor in these uncertainties when prioritizing causes? It feels like EA assumes a stable world where money always achieves the intended impact. But what if that’s not the world we live in? Long termism. A Luxury When the Present Is in Crisis? I get why long termists argue that future people matter. But should we really prioritize them over people suffering today? Long termism tells us that existential risks like AI could wipe out trillions of future lives. But in Uganda, we’re losing lives now—1,500+ die from rabies annually (WHO, 2021), and 41% of children suffer from stunting due to malnutrition (UNICEF, 2022). These are preventable d
Rory Fenton
 ·  · 6m read
 · 
Cross-posted from my blog. Contrary to my carefully crafted brand as a weak nerd, I go to a local CrossFit gym a few times a week. Every year, the gym raises funds for a scholarship for teens from lower-income families to attend their summer camp program. I don’t know how many Crossfit-interested low-income teens there are in my small town, but I’ll guess there are perhaps 2 of them who would benefit from the scholarship. After all, CrossFit is pretty niche, and the town is small. Helping youngsters get swole in the Pacific Northwest is not exactly as cost-effective as preventing malaria in Malawi. But I notice I feel drawn to supporting the scholarship anyway. Every time it pops in my head I think, “My money could fully solve this problem”. The camp only costs a few hundred dollars per kid and if there are just 2 kids who need support, I could give $500 and there would no longer be teenagers in my town who want to go to a CrossFit summer camp but can’t. Thanks to me, the hero, this problem would be entirely solved. 100%. That is not how most nonprofit work feels to me. You are only ever making small dents in important problems I want to work on big problems. Global poverty. Malaria. Everyone not suddenly dying. But if I’m honest, what I really want is to solve those problems. Me, personally, solve them. This is a continued source of frustration and sadness because I absolutely cannot solve those problems. Consider what else my $500 CrossFit scholarship might do: * I want to save lives, and USAID suddenly stops giving $7 billion a year to PEPFAR. So I give $500 to the Rapid Response Fund. My donation solves 0.000001% of the problem and I feel like I have failed. * I want to solve climate change, and getting to net zero will require stopping or removing emissions of 1,500 billion tons of carbon dioxide. I give $500 to a policy nonprofit that reduces emissions, in expectation, by 50 tons. My donation solves 0.000000003% of the problem and I feel like I have f
Recent opportunities in Building effective altruism
3
Apply to become a Futurekind AI Facilitator or Mentor (deadline: April 10)
Jay Luong
· · 2m read
0
0
6
Last week to apply for the Futurekind AI Fellowship! (deadline: April 1)
Jay Luong
· · 1m read
0
0
37
AIS Netherlands is looking for a Founding Executive Director (EOI form)
7 authors
· · 5m read
4
4
View more