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.]
What about the possibility the Centre for Effective Altruism represents the community by editing the EA Handbook to reflect what the community values in spite of what the CEA concludes, the CEA excludes evaluations from the EA Handbook from which it currently diverges from the community, and it's still called the 'EA Handbook' instead of 'CEA's Guide to EA?' Obviously this wouldn't carry EA forward with what the CEA thinks is maximum fidelity, but it's clear many think the CEA is trying to spread the EA message with infidelity, while acting as though they're the only actor in the movement others can trust to carry that message. It looks not only hypocritical but undermines faith in the CEA.
Altering the handbook so it's more of a compromise between multiple actors in EA will redeem the reputation of the CEA. Without that, the CEA can't carry EA forward with the fidelity at all, because the rest of the movement wouldn't cooperate with them. In the meantime, the CEA and everyone else can hammer out what we think is the most good here on the EA Forum. If broader conclusions are drawn which line up with the CEA's evaluation based on a consensus the CEA had behind their perspective the best arguments, that can be included in the next edition of the EA Handbook. Again, from the CEA's perspective, that might seem like deliberately compromising the fidelity of EA in the short-term to appease others. But again, from the perspective of the CEA's current critics, why they're criticizing the 2nd edition of the EA Handbook is because they perceive themselves as protecting the fidelity of EA from the Centre for Effective Altruism. This could solve other contentious issues in EA, such as consideration of both s-risks and x-risks from AI. The EA Handbook could be published as close to identically as possible in multiple languages, which would prevent the CEA from selling EA one way in English, the EAF selling it another way in German, and creating more trust issues which would down the road just become sources of conflict, not unlike the criticism the EA Handbook, 2nd edition, is receiving now. Ultimately, this would be the CEA making a relatively short-term compromise to ensure the long-term fidelity of EA by demonstrating themselves as delegate and representative agency the EA community can still have confidence in.
Thanks for the comments Evan. First, I want to apologize for not seeking broader consultation earlier. This was clearly a mistake.
My plan now is to do as you suggest: talk to other actors in EA and get their feedback on what to include etc. Obviously any compromise is going to leave some unhappy - different groups do just favour different presentations of EA, so it seems unlikely to me that we will get a fully independent presentation that will please everyone. I also worry that democracy is not well suited to editorial decisions, and that the "elect... (read more)