Andy Masley lays out six-point vision for the future of effective altruism
AndyMasley · x · 2026-10-15
With effective altruism back in the headlines amid AI-related political fights, blogger Andy Masley lays out his six-point vision for the movement's direction:
- Take the world's worst problems seriously, even when distant or unpopular: extreme poverty, factory farming, and the risk of losing control to smarter-than-human AI all warrant real resources.
- Use numbers and explicit cost-benefit analysis where they work: anti-malarial bed nets save more lives per dollar; counting lives respects dignity.
- But pluralism and treating people as free agents are foundational: reject confident exchange rates between cause areas; prioritization can't reduce to utilitarian math.
- Presume helping in ways people are free to refuse: bed nets, vitamins, unconditional cash transfers; resist ethical systems that override life choices.
- Ordinary rules of honesty, money, and boundaries still apply, regardless of rational analysis.
- EA works best as a cluster of ideas plus a loose professional network (like YIMBY), not a "community" — one belief system controlling your job, funding, housing, and friends makes changing your mind too costly.
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