I want to write about effective altruism but there is an effective altruist inside my head

We are about to go into EAG. Something feels wronger than normal.

“What are you writing about”, he asks.

“I --”

“I think it would be really high-value to write an overview of the funding landscape for AI safety right now, given the IPO and…”

I agree. But I don’t want to talk about it.

Instead, I launch into something between a reverie and a manifesto.

“Max”, I say (I don’t know his name, but this is usually right), “I want to write about:

• What it felt like, twelve years ago, to fall in love with the first people and ideas to ever make actual fucking sense to me;

• What it felt like inside the lost-to-time texture of that romance — the time before the money, and the more money, and the comms directors, and the community guidelines; the time of blogs about building monuments for aliens, Brian Tomasik’s elegies to insects, and hot tub parties that really should have been chlorinated but weren’t;

• What it felt like to enter the world that makes making sense want to cry, scream, and throw up — the world of fundraising walks that cost more than the funds raised; the world of rich people asking if you can “solve Ukraine” for $10m; the world of (OK, I’ll save the best stuff for the post)

• What it felt like to hone the ideas that make sense into a psychic superweapon that hits naive populations hard (no pun intended, but we do work with a lot of autists), and the immune system I’d hand over if I could do it all over again;

• What it feels like when psychic superweapon wields you (and colleagues), and my spells for a strong internal compass as we enter this new age”

“Oh”, he says.

I glance down at Max’s nametag. Phew.

He glances down the amethyst hanging from my necklace. Shit.

“Did you say psychic…what??”

“No, no, it’s like…a really high-context post-mortem on a decade+ in effective altruism and founding the 2nd largest funder in AI safety”

“Oh, great. Yeah, I’d just make your epistemic status really clear — you don’t want to confuse your marginal counterfactual reader’s priors before they’ve updated on the base rates. Is this going to be before or after the funding landscape review?”

“Max”, I say, “I love you”.

He looks at his phone.

“Max, we are the same”.

He is searching for community health.

“Max, Iast week I read the same 300,000 lives post as you. It made me cry. Yes, you are here with your backpack and your fully charged phone and your clear sense of what is good and true and needed. And yes, I feel so much more confused than I did at your age, would not be seen dead in a backpack, and we likely have fundamental disagreements, some of which can’t be resolved. But in our hearts, Max, we want the same thing: no hens in battery cages, no dead from the next pandemic littering the street; no deadened future. And more than that — you are my comrade not just in wanting to make this world a better place, but in being willing to think hard about how to actually do it, and to collaborate with others even when they really fuck you off. And I want to go on this journey with you, Max, I want to make what has been great even….greater”

I lean in to hug him, tears brimming in my eyes.

He does not lean towards me.

---

“Shall we look together to see if Will has any more availability on Swapcard?”, I ask.

He pauses.

He nods.

---

This is part 1 on the series I have promised Max. Part 2 coming soon!