Ben Todd: EA was always a mix of weird and sensible ideas, not a slide into weirdness
ben_j_todd · x · 2026-10-02
Ben Todd (Effective Ventures) pushes back on the popular journalist narrative that effective altruism started with "common sense malaria nets" and grew increasingly weird over time. He argues this story is wrong: EA has always mixed weird and sensible ideas, because its whole point is finding neglected ways of doing good — "the day it stops being weird is the day it dies."
Related event: EA Founder: When Effective Altruism Stops Being Weird, It Dies(3 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Machine consciousness contributor Jeff Sebo asks: should we save an ant? — cccalum · 2026-10-03
- Researcher puzzles over why he rejects model personhood while other smart people embrace it — _arohan_ · 2026-10-03
- AI swarms may have added 10-40% effective compute to GPU clusters in six months — 1a3orn · 2026-10-02
- Follow-up: the optimization windfall should be smaller at the frontier — 1a3orn · 2026-10-02
- Facebook feed is now majority AI content, and most of it is hard to spot — stvlsn · 2026-10-02
- AI-driven layoffs may destroy compounding 'intelligence capital', argues fintech analyst — mikeflache · 2026-10-02