I have started a Discord server for near-term effective altruists. (If you haven’t used Discord before, it’s a pretty standard chat server. Most of its functions are fairly self-explanatory.)
Most of my effective altruist friends focus on the far future. While far-future effective altruists are great, being around them all the time can get pretty alienating. I don’t often argue the merits of bednets versus cash transfers, which means I get intellectually sloppy knowing I won’t be challenged. I’m slow to learn about new developments relevant to near-term effective altruism, such as discoveries in development economics. Many of the conversations I participate in work from assumptions I don’t share, such as the assumption that we have a double-digit chance of going extinct within the next twenty years.
I suspect that many other near-term effective altruists may be in the same boat, and if so I encourage them to come participate. Even if not, I hope this server can be a fun and interesting place to learn more about effective altruism and connect to other effective altruists.
“Near-term” is hard to define. I intend it to be inclusive of all effective altruists whose work and priority cause areas do not focus on the far future, whether they work on global poverty, animal welfare, mental health, politics, meta-charity, or another cause area. I ask that far-future effective altruists and people whose priority cause area is AI risk or s-risks do not participate. This runs on the honor system; I’m not going to be the Near Term EA police. There are lots of people who are edge cases and I ask them to use their best judgment.
The server is intended to be welcoming to new effective altruists, people who aren’t certain whether they want to be effective altruists or not, and people who are not currently in a place where it makes sense for them to donate, volunteer, or change careers. If you’re wondering whether you’re “not EA enough” to participate, you probably are welcome!
But they'll be unsubstantiated.
You don't have to be certain, just substantiated.
It may be, or it may not be. Even if so, it's not healthy to split groups every time people dislike the majority point of view. "It's a bubble and people are biased and I find it repulsive" is practically indistinguishable from "I disagree with them and I can't convince them".
Again, this is unsupported. What biases? What's the evidence? Who is put off? Etc.
my IRL identity is linked via the little icon by my username. I don't know what's rude here. I'm saying that you need to engage with on a topic before commenting on the viability of engaging on it. Yet this basic point is being met with appeals to logical fallacies, blank denial of the validity of my argument, insistence upon the mere possibility and plausible deniability of your position. These tactics are irritating and lead to nowhere, so all I can do is restate my points in a slightly different manner and hope that you pick up the general idea. You're perceiving that as "rude" because it's terse, but I have no idea what else I can say.
OK, you aren't anonymous, so that's even more surprising. I gave you earlier examples of your rude responses, but doesn't matter, I'm fine going on.
My impression of bias is based by my experience on this forum and observations in view of posts critical of far-future causes. I don't have any systematic study on this topic, so I can't provide you with evidence. It is just my impression, based on my personal experience. But unfortunately, no empirical study on this topic, concerning this forum, exists, so the best we currently have are personal experiences. M... (read more)