Hello! It’s me, a small-scale part-time EA community builder. I read The Life You Can Save in 2009 and figured that in addition to being a vegan and a social worker, I should donate 10%-plus of my income to highly effective causes. Then I connected with my local effective altruism community in 2016 and figured that I should also spend a not-insignificant portion of my waking hours encouraging and connecting other people who want to make the world a better place.
I am cheerful. I work hard. I volunteer at EAGs. I show up for the people around me.
Why? Because I think it’s the right thing to do.
But folks, I am TIRED.
I am tired of having a few people put on pedestals because they are very smart - or very good at self-promotion. I am tired of listening to arguments about who can have the think-iest thoughts. I am tired of drama, scandals, and PR. I am tired of being in a position where I have to apologize for sexism, racism, and other toxic ideologies within this movement. I am tired of convening calls with other community builders where we try to figure out how to best react to the latest Thing That Happened. I am tired of billionaires. And I am really, really tired of seeing people publicly defend bad behavior as good epistemics.
I’m just here because I want the world to be a better, kinder, softer place. I know I’m not the only one. I’m not quitting. But I am tired.
Maybe you are tired, too.
What you're missing here is the concept of heresy.
Plenty of views that are outside the social norm are not considered heretical. For instance, if you don't like a movie that most people like or vice versa, that view is going to be outside the social norm but not in a way that means people who express it are punished for their opinions.
The problem is that some true things are considered heretical, and therefore you must be cautious in how much you reveal of what you really believe, even in private as such private communications can end up being publicized in a way that's out of your control.
Yes, I'm sure Catholics in 16th century Spain also believed that "words and the concepts they perpetuate have consequences", for example such as God deciding to punish your civilization by causing crop harvests to fail three years in a row because you were insufficiently pious and didn't suppress opponents of Catholicism sufficiently strongly.
You can always tell stories about how people expressing views you don't like will have bad consequences. Most of these stories are utter hogwash and are nothing more than exercises in self-delusion. Please keep the past record of such storytelling in mind when you make claims of alleged harm supported only by poor evidence and implicit intuitions you're unable to share with others.
I know exactly how others will respond. My uncertainty is about what I have said where and when will suddenly become the subject of attention by people who wish to attack me. There's no calibration issue if you're afraid to declare you're an atheist in 16th century Spain, just a well-calibrated recognition that doing this will be very bad for you.