When we talk about EA, we’re often talking about two different things that we should distinguish. On one hand, there’s the pre-2013, global poverty-oriented version of EA. We might call that EA 1.0. On the other hand, there’s the post-2017 version of EA that’s much more oriented around AI, longtermism, and existential risk. We could call that EA 2.0.
An important part of the story is that a cult, Leverage Research, organized the first EA Summit in 2013 and eventually gained full control of the Centre of Effective Altruism in 2018 when one of its members became the CEO. Nobody ever talks about this, but a cult infiltrated and took over EA. That’s a major part of EA’s history and development. It might help explain a lot of what’s wrong with EA today.
So, we could also call the pre-2013 era the pre-cult era of EA and the post-2012 era the cult era of EA. The first EA conferences were organized by a cult. Major EA programs like the Pareto Fellowship — which I applied to! — were run by a cult and in a cult-like fashion. This is complete insanity and I almost never see anybody talk about this. Although Leverage Research has mostly — but not entirely! — been ejected from EA now, other cults and extremist groups are still in EA’s orbit. Including dangerous, violent ones that have killed people and tried to kill people.
Anyway, EA 1.0 still exists within EA 2.0. In absolute size, EA 1.0 might have even grown, although in relative terms it’s gone from 100% of EA to maybe 50% or less (depending how you measure).
Sometimes people want to criticize EA 2.0 specifically, without criticizing EA 1.0. Since we don’t have clear terminology (such as “EA 1.0” vs. “EA 2.0”) to distinguish these two parts of effective altruism, the critics often just say they’re criticizing effective altruism. People who want to defend the distinctive characteristics of EA 2.0 sometimes dodge getting to the crux of the disagreement by invoking the nice qualities of EA 1.0 that the critics often actually like.
For instance, a critic might say EA hasn’t put forward enough high-quality evidence or arguments for the supposedly imminent advent of superintelligence. A defender of EA 2.0 might then find a way to invoke GiveWell in order to defend EA’s intellectual rigour and empiricism.
The critic might say the EA community doesn’t focus enough on input from experts, peer-reviewed research, scientific evidence, etc. The criticism is specifically aimed at EA 2.0. But the defender will then use GiveWell as an example of an organization that gets lots of input from experts, reads a lot of peer-reviewed research in order to make decisions, and prizes randomized controlled trials and data from the field.
In this case, the critic is criticizing EA 2.0 (not EA 1.0) and the defender is defending EA 1.0 (not EA 2.0) and they’re just talking past each other. This is why terminology is helpful. This is why distinctions are helpful.
When you break it down, most critics of EA have a lot to criticize about EA 2.0 but very little, if anything, to criticize about EA 1.0. EA 1.0 had (and has) its critics as well — some make great points about, e.g., the importance of institutions in economic development, others make more dubious points related to Marxism or nationalism or communitarianism — but they are much fewer in number than the critics of EA 2.0.
Also, critics of EA 1.0 more often make criticisms that are fundamentally constructive, e.g., look into funding pro-democracy and anti-corruption interventions in developing countries in addition to global health. By contrast, critics of EA 2.0 more often find very little that is salvageable from EA thinking on AI, longtermism, and existential risk. The advice is commonly: go back to the drawing board, start over from scratch.
I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but my impression is that, for example, frequent EA Forum poster titotal and the philosopher David Thorstad have relatively little (if any) criticism for EA 1.0 and a whole heap of criticism for EA 2.0. Speaking for myself, I’m pro-EA 1.0 and anti-EA 2.0. I’m a fan of EA’s pre-cult era and then things seem to have gotten worse after the cult infiltration began. Critics and defenders of EA 2.0 can stop talking past each other so much if we adopt the EA 1.0 vs. EA 2.0 distinction.
This is particularly important given that EA is not an all or nothing, black or white, binary proposition. People sympathetic to EA can make fine-grained choices about what they support and invest themselves in — and what they don’t. If we’re thinking on the margin, it doesn’t make sense to try to weigh up all the good and bad of EA and see if it’s a net positive. That’s a pointless exercise. We’re not faced with a binary choice. The thing is to think about the next right step. Where should our next incremental unit of resources go? What communities and organizations should we focus our time and energy on? Among all possible actions we could take, which are the best ones? Or at least, good enough?[1]
The point of this post is just to a) make the distinction between EA 1.0 and EA 2.0 and b) encourage people to start using the “EA 1.0” vs. “EA 2.0” terminology. If you want to get into the reasons I’m against EA 2.0, I’ve written extensively about that elsewhere. Even better, you could read the philosopher David Thorstad’s years of thoughtful criticism on EA 2.0. The point here is just to make the distinction, and encourage the terminology.
Also, since the EA Forum is overwhelmingly EA 2.0 (to the point of suppressing anti-EA 2.0 sentiment, including through moderation), I want to encourage anyone with the time and energy to work on alternative platforms for discussion to do so. There should be an EA 1.0 space for discussion. (If you email me or message me on Substack, I might be able to help or connect you with people who can.)
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Incidentally, black and white thinking like this is a frequent trap in political discussions. Is capitalism or mixed market economies good or bad? Is nationalism good or bad? Are regulations good or bad? Is the government good or bad? Is liberal democracy good or bad? Is social justice good or bad? If you get stuck in the binary role of a critic, you’ll often end up advocating worse alternatives to what you’re criticizing, such as Marxism-Leninism, libertarianism, authoritarianism, illiberal populism, etc. If you get stuck in the binary role of a defender, you wind up becoming an apologist for problems and failures that people are rightly angry about. Even if you have good intentions, you don’t come across as a credible reformer who is going to fix things and make them right.
EA 1.0 vs EA 2.0 is worse terminology than GHD vs longtermism. GHD and longtermism is more descriptive, and therefore less likely to confuse folks.
But longtermism doesn't necessarily include AI safety, since many advocates of AI safety are not longtermists. If you think there's a 50%+ chance of superintelligence within a decade and a 5%+ chance of human extinction if superintelligence is created, you don't have to be concerned at all with anything that might happen 1,000+ years from now to treat that as an urgent priority.
In 2021, Will MacAskill, who coined the term longtermism, defined longtermism like this:
In the introduction to the 2025 anthology Essays on Longtermism, Hillary Greaves, Jacob Barrett, and David Thorstad cite that definition from Will MacAskill. They also characterize longtermism like this:
Not all AI safety advocates are longtermists. Some are concerned with what will happen within the next 100 years and don't really think or care that much about the future 1,000+ years from now.
To accurately break down the EA 1.0 vs. EA 2.0 distinction by cause area, it would have to be something convoluted like: global health and development + animal welfare vs. AI safety + longtermism.
There does indeed seem to be a split in the community, but I’m not sure it’s great to work towards that rather than against it.
I kind of try to speak to folks in EA 2.0 occasionally despite being pretty squarely in EA 1.0 and that’s probably net positive, e.g. to avoid a complete echo chamber?
Okay, so I'm advocating two things. The first is a new piece of terminology. The second is online discussion spaces oriented around EA 1.0 (and not EA 2.0).
If people can articulate the distinction better by having this terminology, it might mean people talk past each other less, which might mean they have fewer frustrating discussions where neither person feels like they're getting their point across. In that way, making the distinction could help people get along better rather than worse.
I'm totally against echo chambers, but the EA Forum is mostly an EA 2.0 echo chamber and that's unlikely to change anytime soon. I think there should be EA 1.0 spaces for discussion that make room for all the pro-EA 1.0 and anti-EA 2.0 conversations that can't happen on the EA Forum. You risking winding up in just another echo chamber if you do that, so it will be up to whoever gets involved to make sure that doesn't happen. And if people who prefer EA 1.0 want to engage with EA 2.0 discourse, the EA Forum will still be around for them to do it.
It seems like you're drawing a connection between the Leverage stuff and "EA 2.0" without really justifying that.
Yes. It could just be a coincidence. But I don't think it's just a coincidence. I think the lack of critical thinking and lack of good norms you need to let a cult take over your movement is a bad sign, and may predict things to come. Particularly if there isn't really an adequately large post-mortem, an attempt to reckon with such a catastrophic mistake, such a catastrophic failure, and learn deep lessons from it.
This risks going down a rabbit hole, but I think one of the systemic problems with the EA movement is a consistent failure to do good post-mortems. (And while we're at it, good pre-mortems would probably help too.) Many movements, organizations, groups, individuals, etc. experience big failures. Sometimes they learn from them and turn things around. Sometimes they don't. There are several instances such as the Leverage Research infiltration, the Manifest racism scandal, and even the collapse of FTX where I think EA had opportunities to learn hard lessons and do things better in the future, but didn't.
But, of course, I can't prove any of this. It's all just my opinion.
I strong-downvoted this post. Criticism such as this ought to be more carefully written, with greater precision, clarity, and evidence. As it is, I find this strawmans much of what EA is today and (despite your plea for no one to criticize wording) uses at times deceivingly vague wording to make something seen worse than it really is (e.g. "in EA's orbit" to imply that these things happened within EA).
Furthermore, to claim that "a cult infiltrated and took over EA" without elaborating, and then to continuously call the modern era of EA as the post-cult era, is slander. Provide evidence and good arguments or don't post such critique at all.
I found your substack post critiquing EA intriguing if strongly worded at times, and your response to criticism seemed sincere and thoughtful. I'm disappointed to see this much less thoughtful post.
The citations are inline. When a word or phrase is hyperlinked, that's a citation. You can open the links and see the evidence for yourself.
For example, I cited this comment from Oliver Habryka, who worked for the Centre for Effective Altruism during the 2010s:
I cited Zoe Curzi's account of her time at Leverage Research, which supports its characterization as a cult. I also cited the Centre for Effective Altruism's webpage which documents some of its historical relationship with Leverage Research, and notes that Leverage Research organized the EA Summit conferences and the Pareto Fellowship. An additional citation in the post is an EA Forum comment (with a reply corroborating it) that describes cult-like behaviour during the interview process for the Pareto Fellowship.
I've actually never heard anyone in EA either a) deny that Leverage Research is a cult or b) deny that it was deeply involved in EA and the CEA, although maybe some people do deny one or both of those things. I don't necessarily have my finger on the pulse.
By in EA's orbit, I mean, e.g., that if Stop AI's co-founder had committed a mass shooting at OpenAI (like he said he wanted to do) some of the Stop AI money — which the co-founder wanted to use to buy high-powered weapons and ammo, but was prevented from doing by other people at Stop AI — that bought those guns and those bullets that massacred people in the OpenAI offices might have been donated by people in the EA community who thought they were donating to an EA-aligned organization in an EA cause area (AI safety). For example, here's a post on the EA Forum that debates whether to donate to Stop AI. It ultimately decides against, but not for the reason that Stop AI is likely to be too extremist or might end up killing people.
The Zizians did not come from EA directly, but they came from the LessWrong community. There is so much overlap between EA and the LessWrong community these days that the distinction between the two is porous. The lead sentence of the Wikipedia article on the Zizians describes them like this:
Whether that's "in EA's orbit" or what the phrase "in EA's orbit" means is something you can feel free to disagree with me on. Would it have been better if I said "adjacent to EA" or "only one or two degrees separated from EA"? The core point is that Leverage Research was not just a totally random, out-of-the-blue fluke. New groups with extreme views and violent behaviours are still not that far separated from EA. This is not normal and doesn't typically happen.