by Summary
Effective altruists (EAs) can be created by making effective people more altruistic, altruistic people more effective, or young people more of both. Which approach works best depends on the specifics of the cause and empirical details.
Introduction
Effective altruism, which I would define as applied utilitarianism, includes a number of components, but the name itself naturally suggests two major categories: orientation toward effectively accomplishing results, and aiming to accomplish results that reduce suffering. If we want to create more EAs, should we focus on one of these components more than others?
Making effective people more altruistic
There are lots of segments of society where you can find "effective" people, i.e., those who seek to rationally accomplish goals using strategic planning, science, critical thinking, etc. One obvious example is the LessWrong / CfAR crowd -- rationalists who aren't necessarily altruists. But there are many other groups that share some of the traits mentioned above: business people, scientists/engineers, political-campaign managers, economists, marketers, etc.
So one way to create new EAs is to take people who already think and act strategically (e.g., business executives) and show them how rewarding it can be to devote oneself to helping others. An example organization working on this is Giving What We Can.
More concretely for my case, I'm concerned about making sure that fellow rationalists take extreme suffering as seriously as I think it should be taken. So I might, for example, want those in the extinction-risk-reduction movement to think more carefully about humanity's potential to cause astronomical amounts of suffering in the future.
Making altruistic people more effective
There are also many sectors of society that contain people who want to make the world better but aren't doing so in the most efficient ways. The classic example is those who want to donate to humanitarian causes but give to, say, soup kitchens in the US rather than disease prevention in the Third world. As far as animal issues, many vegans focus on zoos and circuses when they could be thinking about farm animals or even wild animals. Effective Animal Activism is an example organization whose work is mainly about making existing altruists more effective.
When we explain the importance of wild-animal suffering to vegans and animal-welfare activists, we're making existing altruists more effective. The same is true when we activate negative/negative-leaning utilitarians who aren't working on anything specific to think about future scenarios involving massive suffering and what we can do to change society now so that they'll be less likely to happen.
Doing both at once
It might seem hard to make someone effective and altruistic at the same time, but many of the EAs that I've seen join the movement have been of this type. The reason is because most new EAs are students, and it's actually not hard to introduce students to lots of new ideas at once, compared against old people whose brains are sluggish to change. (The downside is that students' minds can easily move away from EA too, or at least toward activism that might increase expected suffering like reducing extinction risk. But still overall, I think students are among the best populations we can reach.)
How to decide?
So we've seen that there are several ways to create EAs. Which approach is best isn't obvious just from the taxonomy above. It depends on the cause you're targeting, where the relatively underexploited gains are to be found, and how many people you can influence how easily and how much influence they themselves will have.
Effective altruists (EAs) can be created by making effective people more altruistic, altruistic people more effective, or young people more of both. Which approach works best depends on the specifics of the cause and empirical details.
Introduction
Effective altruism, which I would define as applied utilitarianism, includes a number of components, but the name itself naturally suggests two major categories: orientation toward effectively accomplishing results, and aiming to accomplish results that reduce suffering. If we want to create more EAs, should we focus on one of these components more than others?
Making effective people more altruistic
There are lots of segments of society where you can find "effective" people, i.e., those who seek to rationally accomplish goals using strategic planning, science, critical thinking, etc. One obvious example is the LessWrong / CfAR crowd -- rationalists who aren't necessarily altruists. But there are many other groups that share some of the traits mentioned above: business people, scientists/engineers, political-campaign managers, economists, marketers, etc.
So one way to create new EAs is to take people who already think and act strategically (e.g., business executives) and show them how rewarding it can be to devote oneself to helping others. An example organization working on this is Giving What We Can.
More concretely for my case, I'm concerned about making sure that fellow rationalists take extreme suffering as seriously as I think it should be taken. So I might, for example, want those in the extinction-risk-reduction movement to think more carefully about humanity's potential to cause astronomical amounts of suffering in the future.
Making altruistic people more effective
There are also many sectors of society that contain people who want to make the world better but aren't doing so in the most efficient ways. The classic example is those who want to donate to humanitarian causes but give to, say, soup kitchens in the US rather than disease prevention in the Third world. As far as animal issues, many vegans focus on zoos and circuses when they could be thinking about farm animals or even wild animals. Effective Animal Activism is an example organization whose work is mainly about making existing altruists more effective.
When we explain the importance of wild-animal suffering to vegans and animal-welfare activists, we're making existing altruists more effective. The same is true when we activate negative/negative-leaning utilitarians who aren't working on anything specific to think about future scenarios involving massive suffering and what we can do to change society now so that they'll be less likely to happen.
Doing both at once
It might seem hard to make someone effective and altruistic at the same time, but many of the EAs that I've seen join the movement have been of this type. The reason is because most new EAs are students, and it's actually not hard to introduce students to lots of new ideas at once, compared against old people whose brains are sluggish to change. (The downside is that students' minds can easily move away from EA too, or at least toward activism that might increase expected suffering like reducing extinction risk. But still overall, I think students are among the best populations we can reach.)
How to decide?
So we've seen that there are several ways to create EAs. Which approach is best isn't obvious just from the taxonomy above. It depends on the cause you're targeting, where the relatively underexploited gains are to be found, and how many people you can influence how easily and how much influence they themselves will have.
