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.]
The shift from Doing Good Better to this handbook reinforces my sense that there are two types of EA:
Type 1:
Causes: global health, farm animal welfare
Moral patienthood is hard to seriously dispute
Evidence is more direct (RCTs, corporate pledges)
Charity evaluators exist (because evidence is more direct)
Earning to give is a way to contribute
Direct work can be done by people with general competence
Economic reasoning is more important (partly due to donations being more important)
More emotionally appealing (partly due to being more able to feel your impact)
Some public knowledge about the problem
More private funding and a larger preexisting community
Type 2:
Causes: AI alignment, biosecurity
Moral patienthood can be plausibly disputed (if you're relying on the benefits to the long term future; however, these causes are arguably important even without considering the long term future)
Evidence is more speculative (making prediction more important)
Charity evaluation is more difficult (because impact is harder to measure)
Direct work is the way to contribute
Direct work seems to benefit greatly from specific skills/graduate education
Game theory reasoning is more important (of course, game theory is technically part of economics)
Less emotionally appealing (partly due to being less able to feel your impact)
Little public knowledge about the problem
Less private funding and a smaller preexisting community
What on Earth do you mean by "disputing moral patienthood"? If there are no moral patients then there is basically no reason for altruism whatsoever.