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This is: Effective Altruism and Meaning in Life, published by extra_ordinary on the effective altruism forum.
Suppose I fail to make a major altruistic breakthrough with my life. Can my life still be meaningful? Do I still have value as a person?
We know in our heads we're supposed to answer 'yes' to these questions. But in our guts, these days—these days of great loathing over the difficulty of getting jobs in EA—it can feel to many of us like we're stuck living lives that are utterly ordinary, marginal, minuscule, impactless, insignificant, replaceable, unoriginal, unimportant, uninspiring, or uninspired.
The minds of EAs are, admirably, more scope-sensitive regarding impact than average, untrained intuitions. The great saints of EA—heroes like Stanislov Petrov, Norman Borlaug, or various philanthropists and nonprofit founders—truly do save or improve many, many orders of magnitude more lives than a typical person. This can tempt our guts, if not our heads, to feel we are many, many orders of magnitude less important than we could or should be.
What follows is an allegorical, caricatured chronology of how I got to the point of coveting elusive EA talent-gaps, but then realized I was staking too much of my self-worth on success as an EA. It mentions "saints" and "angels" that altered my trajectory and seesawed my optimism. Why on earth would I use these metaphors? Well, it's not only because it's more fun (though it is). The hope is that others will find the story familiar, amusing, or reassuring, and will gain some perspective on meaning in life and how EA does and does not contribute to it.
"Build a Movement": The Gospel according to St. Peter
The vivid yellow cover of St. Peter's gospel shone persuasively, almost blindingly, into my eyes. Its empowering title, The Life You Can Save, was as luring as the precious, sad-looking child whose picture helped spell out the title.
I held it in my very hands as I gazed amazed around the university lawn, excitedly in dialog with some of the most intelligent, ambitious young altruists I had ever met. Boldly, we brainstormed the myriad ways we could promote effective giving to our community.
And unto us St. Peter spake:
I think we should advocate the level of giving that will raise the largest possible total, and so have the best consequences. . . . [R]oughly 5 percent of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, and rather more for the very rich. My hope is that people will be convinced that they can and should give at this level. I believe that doing so would be a first step toward restoring the ethical importance of giving as an essential component of a well-lived life. And if it is widely adopted, we'll have more than enough to end extreme poverty. (p. 152)
Soon we faithful would go on to start a Giving What We Can chapter which would meet near that very lawn. Sacraments developed in short order: we Lived Below the Line once a year; we took the Giving What We Can Pledge or at least Tried Giving; we promoted effective altruism across campus; we debated whether to give now or give later. Finally we had found our great calling and purpose; at last we were part of something larger than ourselves. And much unlike superstitious apostasies, we were able to to defend every detail with sound logic, even equations, some fit for the back of an envelope.
Trials: a slow-igniting revolution
Alas, temptation soon surrounded us, and we wavered in our walks. We grew weary of harping on the same message, despite our yearnings to persevere. Conversions were slow: for every hundred people exposed to our holy refrain, 'your dollar goes further overseas', barely one or two were transformed by our gospel. Even for the converts we scarcely had enough rousing rituals: signing the Pledge was one-time; Live Below the Line was once a year; deb...
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