~5 months I formally quit EA (formally here means “I made an announcement on Facebook”). My friend Timothy was very curious as to why; I felt my reasons applied to him as well. This disagreement eventually led to a podcast episode, where he and I try convince each other to change sides on Effective Altruism- he tries to convince me to rejoin, and I try to convince him to quit.
Some highlights:
- My story of falling in love, trying to change, and then falling out of love with Effective Altruism. That middle part draws heavily on past posts of mine, including EA Vegan Advocacy is not truthseeking, and it’s everyone’s problem and Truthseeking is the ground in which other principles grow
- Why Timothy still believes in EA
Spoilers: Timothy agrees leaving EA was right for me, but he wants to invest more in fixing it.
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Aceso Under Glass 
Thanks for posting this.
I respect where you’re both coming from in the dialog. I approach it from a different angle.
I consider myself an EA because 1) I like the idea of finding and choosing more effective ways of giving. EA is what introduced me to doing that in a deliberate manner. And 2) most of my contributions go to GiveWell-ranked charities as a result.
McAskill’s excitement about how easy it is for globally wealthy people like the average American to improve the lives of many people in poorer countries is also a memorable idea I got from EA.
I’ve never been in the inner circle of EA figures. I’m much more connected to the rationalist community – I used to go to LessWrong/ACX meetups and only stopped for convenience reasons – but I am more skeptical about the core rationalist ideas than I am about the core EA ideas. So I’m actually less likely to call myself a rationalist than an EA.
As someone on the periphery, the basic ideas matter to me more than leadership or how the community works. I respect that it isn’t like that for everyone, though.